How many readers hold down jobs while wishing to cook tasty authentic Asian food at home and raise children?
Jyoti Patel managed the issue by founding Red Rickshaw, the UK’s number One online Asian grocer.
Search the site for all kinds of Asian foods; readymade dishes, all the Asian ingredients you might ever want, even festival and pooja items, jewellery and halal meat.
Red Rickshaw employs a global staff serving thousands of international customers.
Jyoti Patel says,
“My business is disrupting the current market to raise the bar by providing great customer service. This requires a shift in market place thinking and a need for greater efficiency as the industry has a high level of wastage. There is also a need for tighter process and controls – increasing the general standard and quality of goods through improved supply-chain management.”
How did it start?
Jyoti told us, “I wanted it all. I wanted a high-flying career whilst wanting to be there for my children and watch them grow.
Being a digital-age millennial wasn’t enough. Though I had enjoyed 10+ years of Technology & Business Strategy in some of the City’s best firms like Deloitte and the London Stock Exchange, I longed to be my own boss.
Having young kids to support and being the bread winner of the family meant I could not leave a well-paying job, especially as entrepreneurs of start-ups get paid very little. My head told me to play it safe, whilst my heart yearned to take me in another direction. Hence my journey began. I grew the business on the side whilst working full-time.
As a result, I have become a pioneer and created a company that is disrupting the traditional large Asian retail market. I mixed IT and Business and brought a new business model into an age-old industry to bring about positive change.”
Background
Jyoti Patel is an Indian-born British Asian. She only recalls UK memories as she came here at two years old. “I spent the early part of my life in the lovely meadows of Northampton, and was only exposed to city living when I moved to London to attend university,” she recalls.
“Cooking was a family affair. Coming from a sociable, large family, eating was the central theme of every day. I spent time with my grandmother, who spent a lot of her time thinking up ideas of what to serve a family of at least 12 on a daily basis (not including any guests and neighbours that would be joining us for dinner every day).
The first thing I had learned was to make the dough of the chapatti. I was not allowed near the gas hob, so was only able to watch it being cooked. I was then allowed to spread the Ghee at the end. During those days, there were no ready-made pastes, pickles or spice mixes. I would marvel at how amazing my grandmother’s cooking was with just a handful of key ingredients. The most memorable dishes or snacks included whole potato and stuffed baby aubergine curry.
Birth of Red Rickshaw
Having grown up eating Indian food on a daily basis, Jyoti Patel started experimenting with a spice kit her mother sent with her when she left home for university. “Due to a lack of time and availability of ingredients, I would find myself spicing up my pasta dishes or making an Indian version of beans on toast, or even making stir-fried noodles with an Indian twist. I realised there were a lot of similarities of ingredients used in other Asian cuisines as well- just used and cooked differently,” Jyoti explains.
Getting the ingredients was always a challenge when you had little time. You would need to make a special trip to the store, worry about finding parking spaces that are close enough so you can easily carry that 10kg bag of rice, and then also to turn up and find the ingredients you wanted had been sold out.
As well as the sourcing and convenience of providing these ingredients online, Red Rickshaw helps the exploration of the many different ways of using these ingredients to cook different Asian dishes.
Red Rickshaw’s Fresh Foods are Really Fresh!
Jyoti says that there is one area that she has overcome old-school thinking. “Traditionally people like to touch and feel their vegetables and so it is difficult to trust someone else to pick the best of the bunch for them. However, we have found that our customers praise the quality of our fruit and vegetables as it is fresher than what they find on the high street shops. We sort through them, clean them and ensure we only dispatch the best quality of groceries.
For more info go to https://www.redrickshaw.com/
