What started as an immigrant family’s venture, producing and selling Indian sweets and snacks out of their London, U.K. home, has become the number-1 Indian-food brand in Canada and the world.
Using real, quality ingredients has always been at the core of the Patak’s brand. And, the company still utilizes some original family recipes, as well as a unique secret spice blend.
“We work very closely with spice suppliers in India and around the world [to] ensure our products taste authentic,” explains Natalia Goderich, senior brand manager – Patak’s at AB World Foods. She also notes the company educates the farmers it sources from to ensure best practices and that family farms are sustainable for future generations.
The brand has had a presence in Canada for about two decades and its selection of cooking sauces, curry pastes, chutneys, pickles and pappadums (lentil-based Indian flatbread) is distributed and sold to foodservice in Canada by C.W. Shasky & Associates Ltd.
“We have a wide a spectrum of products; we have wide a spectrum of knowledge and expertise; and we are the number-1 brand in the Indian category,” says Goderich.
“We’ve been experiencing double-digit growth in Canada,” Jeff David, sales director – Patak’s says of the brand’s foodservice channel. “And a lot of that is due to right-sizing the business and moving into plastic [packaging]. Plastic may have a bad connotation to it these days, but in terms of the restaurant trade, it’s extremely important from a food-safety standpoint.”
Patak’s butter-chicken sauce is its top product for foodservice in Canada, David adds. “We generally see that as our entry flavour with customers in Canada.” But, he notes “generally, foodservice is at the leading edge in terms of recipe development and different uses [for our products]. We’ve had butter-chicken subs in the past and you can see different applications with butter-chicken poutines,” says David, who points to Pizza Pizza and Pizza 73 as other clients that have played with Indian flavours.
