About Master Indian Spice
In 2015, Sunny Zaman started a Indian Street vendor stall at Fredericton’s farmer’s market.
There was a high demand. In the tiny Atlantic Canadian town market, where a the cultural mix of patrons spans nearly all global cultures, an Indian market stall was welcome, and mostly successful. There was only one problem. Sunny could not cook, only his partner Serbiot could.
Although Sunny loved Indian food and had a passion for sharing it, his passion was not motivated by the chef’s impulse of wanting to be that person who feeds their family or friends. He was not hooked on hosting or cooking, he was hooked on sharing what he liked to eat. But since he had to pull his weight in the kitchen, his partner put the recipes into terms Sunny could understand: he made Sunny a spreadsheet.
The recipes were authentic and complicated, but they could be done systematically and easily, it was just a matter of keeping them simple. Sunny now had a cook-by-numbers system that would let him get his part of the cooking done.
After some time, an idea occurred to Sunny: why don’t we take this simplified recipe concept, and make it into a product. Very soon the pair was selling spice kits. These were Chinese take out boxes containing pouches of spices and a recipe that gave customers a step-by-step recipe that instructed them in the simplest of terms. They had invented an educational product, and everyone loved it.
Sales of the spice kits quickly overtook sales of the prepared food. Customers wanted to learn how to prepare restaurant-quality traditional Indian food at home, and Sunny soon launched Master Indian Spice, a series of retail products based on the original concept.
Since those uncertain beginnings, Master Indian has become a brand dedicated to building a diverse culinary tradition in North America.
Through our spice kits we want to teach Canadians and Americans how to make authentic Indian food the way it was meant to taste.