Motivated by a love of spices and a passion for family mealtimes, Spice Kitchen are on a mission to inspire people to cook more flavoursome food from scratch with the launch of their new recipe-led website. 

Back in 2020, throughout the pandemic, small family business Spice Kitchen noticed that more and more customers were buying spices to cook meals from home. As a company that had previously enjoyed the majority of its sales from wholesale and retail clients, it was a joy for them to see customers getting creative in their kitchens. 

Sanjay Aggarwal, who co-founded Spice Kitchen with his mum Shashi in 2012, says of this: “Spice Kitchen has always been about inspiring people to cook amazing meals at home, so when the opportunity presented itself for us to provide more support and guidance to people, we went for it! This cook from scratch, experimental trend looks to be here to stay, so it was definitely time to up our game and make a real feature of the recipe section on our website.”

He continues: “We created loads of recipes based on our family favourites and started sharing them online. Over time, our little website just wasn’t up to the job in terms of the sheer number of recipes we wanted to add. So we’ve invested hugely to bring this part of our business to the forefront.”

As a business owner with a young family, Sanjay has been keen to demonstrate how family mealtimes can play an important role in building bonds and connections. But he is aware of the time constraints that many of us with busy lives lead. He has also been sensitive to the recent cost of living increases. He has been keen to add recipes to the website that can be cooked quickly, with fewer ingredients, to help those on a budget.

He says of this: “We have been privileged in being able to help our customers with recipe ideas, particularly for those who feel there is a barrier to cooking with spices. Our new website aims to share easy recipes that don’t need huge amounts of ingredients. This is particularly important right now, with people watching their pennies and, for some, feeling worried about having the oven on for hours.”

Spice Kitchen’s new website, designed by deuce:studio in London, features a state-of-the-art recipe section where visitors can search for dishes based on region and spice level! Helpful for those who love it hot or for those wishing for a milder spice experience. In addition, the website also features a tasty range of recipes suitable for babies and young children, which are free from salt, sugar and chilli. 

All of this work developing recipes and sharing their love of food has opened some interesting doors for Sanjay and his mum, with an unexpected twist to the tale emerging in late 2021. 

Sanjay explains: “The feedback from customers has been amazing, they’ve loved the spice advice, and for us, it has led us into an exciting new direction, in that we got a publishing deal on the back of all the recipes we’ve created. The book is due for publication in May 2023, so me and mum are back in the kitchen together, capturing our recipes and testing them out with family and friends. We are super busy with that at the moment, but definitely not complaining. It’s going to be a dream come true to see the book in print when the time comes!”