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Richa Gupta | Good Food for Good
97 Plays6 months ago
Years ago the International section held some remarkable discoveries but now the flavours and inspiration found it traditional plant-based recipes from around the world are found throughout the grocery store… even in the ketchup aisle.
On this episode of Aisle 42 I talk with founder Richa Gupta from Good Food for Good and we talk about her passion for family eating that’s full of variety and nutritious choices that everyone, even our kids, can enjoy.
We explore her innovative approach to creating convenient, wholesome pantry staples that are packed with organic ingredients, free from added sugars, soy, corn syrup, gluten, dairy, or preservatives.
She walks us through her Whole 30 approval approach.
We talk about our favourite Indian, Mexican and Italian sauces and we cover some really important ground with their Buy One, Feed One initiative.
You’re going to love listening in.
To learn more about these amazing plant-based sauces visit https://goodfoodforgood.ca.
To learn more about the makers of this podcast go to: https://www.ethicalfoodgroup.com/podcast.
Here’s a summary of this interview:
Introduction and Connection: Corwin Hiebert and Richa Gupta finally connect after meeting at food shows, excited to discuss Good Food for Good's impact.
Vision for Future Grocery Stores: Richa envisions grocery stores full of fresh produce, recipe cards, and videos to inspire and educate customers on using fresh ingredients.
Nutrition and Variety: Emphasizes the importance of variety in diets for gut health, aiming for 40 different plants a week compared to the average 10.
Product Line Overview: Good Food for Good offers condiments like ketchups and BBQ sauces with no added sugar, Indian and Mexican sauces, and a unique pumpkin seed pasta sauce for added plant-based protein.
Whole 30 Approved: Discusses the Whole 30 approval for their products, aligning with their philosophy of avoiding sugar and artificial ingredients.
Commitment to Organic Ingredients: The challenge and importance of maintaining a 100% organic product line, emphasizing the benefits for both humans and the planet.
Buy One, Feed One Initiative: For every product purchased, a meal is provided to a person in need through partnerships with food banks in Canada, India, and the US, having donated over two million meals.
Packaging Choices: The decision to use glass jars instead of plastic to reduce waste and promote reusability, despite higher costs and lower recycling rates.
Popular Products: Their ketchup is the best-seller, praised for its taste and lack of added sugars, with children being a key test market.
Expansion and Availability: Good Food for Good products are available across Canada and the US in major retailers like Whole Foods, Loblaw, Safeway, and online markets.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
This is aisle 42. Years ago, the international section of our grocery stores held some remarkable discoveries. But now the flavors and inspiration found in traditional plant-based recipes from around the world are found throughout the grocery store, even in the ketchup aisle.
00:00:21
Speaker
On this episode of I Have 42, I talk with founder Richard Gupta from Good Food for Good. And we talk about our passion for family eating that's full of variety and nutritious choices that everyone, even our kids, can enjoy.
Organic Pantry Staples and Recipe Inspiration
00:00:33
Speaker
We explore her innovative approach to creating convenient, wholesome pantry staples that are packed with organic ingredients, free from added sugars, soy, corn syrup, gluten, dairy, and preservatives. She walks us through her Whole30 approval approach. We talk about her favorite Indian, Mexican, and Italian sauces, and we cover some really important ground with their Buy One, Feed One initiative. You're going to love listening in. Here's Richa from Good Food for Good.
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm so glad we're able to finally connect. Rich, we've bumped into each other at a couple of food shows over the years, but now we have a chance to have a proper chat. I'm excited to talk to you about your beautiful product and the impact that your team is making.
Meal Variety and Gut Health
00:01:17
Speaker
And I'd like to officially welcome you to the I'll Fort You podcast by asking if you were to imagine the perfect grocery store of the future, what would it look like?
00:01:27
Speaker
Oh, that is first of all, I wanted to be here. Let's start with that. The future grocery store for me would be full of variety of produce, lots of greens, perhaps have recipe cards that talk about or videos running that talk about how to actually use that produce. Because I know many people who still don't know how to take fresh
00:01:52
Speaker
ingredients and convert them into delicious food. So I see future grocery stores to be able to give us or inspire us to make those dishes, to use all this beautiful stuff that nature has intended for us.
Product Offerings and Whole30 Philosophy
00:02:08
Speaker
That sounds really wonderful. I like the approach. Recipe cards, little videos, little tutorials along the way, a guided journey through the grocery store. Totally. I mean, everyone is confused about what am I making for dinner tonight? Imagine going into a grocery store, you'll see a recipe and you have everything lying right there.
00:02:27
Speaker
And we're very repetitive with what we buy. We buy very habitually and we're comfortable with certain brands. We know our family likes certain brands. They won't get wasted if we buy them usually. And so we can get really stuck. And when we want to break out of that, a lot of people can feel really paralyzed by it. I think that especially given that things like prep time and storage and
00:02:53
Speaker
different cooking methods, all these things can really add up on top of a busy life and a busy family. It can be really, really tricky. So I like that approach.
00:03:03
Speaker
Totally. And the more I've learned about nutrition, it talks about variety being essential for a healthy gut. It is not as much about how much protein you're eating, how much carbs you're eating. The more variety you eat, I think they say roughly about 40 different plants a week. If you can get that much variety in your diet, your gut is good. But most of us get like 10.
00:03:28
Speaker
We stick to our carrots, peas, peppers, potatoes, garlic. We can count what we buy on a weekly basis. I hope someone is listening who has a grocery store and creates that now. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
00:03:49
Speaker
So good food for good. You guys have a wonderful lineup. Why don't you take a moment and walk us through what you guys make and why you make it.
Challenges in Organic Supply Chain
00:03:59
Speaker
So we like to call what we create are the best pantry staples that you can find. And the whole idea was to make it easy for everyone to enjoy flavors without spending hours and hours in the kitchen. So when I started the company, my daughter was four years old. She'd started to eat all kinds of food. And I had a busy career. And I was avoiding dairy, sugar, just for my health's sake.
00:04:26
Speaker
And when I tried to look for shortcuts to make my life easy, I really couldn't find many other than a pasta sauce and soy sauce. It was pretty much nothing that I would call wholesome or that I felt comfortable feeding my own child. So that's how Good Food for Good was born.
00:04:44
Speaker
So we have a line of condiments, which is ketchup and barbecue sauces, no added sugar. We only use dates to sweeten. We have a line of Indian sauces. That's my heritage. Again, making Indian food can sometimes be overwhelming with all the ingredients that are required to make it. So I just wanted to make it easy. We have a lineup.
00:05:03
Speaker
Mexican sauces and we have a line of world's first pasta sauce with pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin seeds add the protein to the sauce without the meat and it's actually the same amount of protein that you would get from a meat sauce but with added benefit of seeds. That's amazing. I really love that. I think that
00:05:23
Speaker
when good food companies, good food for good, can jump into the meal space. And I
Sustainability and Packaging Choices
00:05:31
Speaker
say that because there's a lot of emphasis and focus on innovation in the snacking world, but when it comes to meal prep,
00:05:38
Speaker
like those meal locations where we need the calories, we need the nutrients, we need a lot of the things that our bodies need, that's where it likes to get a little bit more complicated. So that sauce with protein included, plant-based protein, I think that's a beautiful thing. Now, when I look at some of your packaging, there are many certifications or highlights or collets that I'm very familiar with. There's one that's a Whole30 approved.
00:06:05
Speaker
You got to walk us through that because I had never seen it before and your product was the first to highlight it for me. So what does whole 30 approved mean? For sure. So whole 30 is, um, I should say eating program. I don't want to use the word diet because they don't want to use the word diet. So it's like a reset. Let's put it back. It's a 30 day reset started by Melissa Hartway, where you don't eat grains. You don't eat sugar. You don't do the alcohol.
00:06:34
Speaker
no dairy, no legumes either. So it's a very restrictive diet and the whole idea is if you eat like that for 30 days, it will take care of your inflammation.
00:06:46
Speaker
and no sugar alcohols either. And with inflammation and all of the things that your body is going through, you will feel healthier after that. That's the whole criteria that you take away anything that
Philanthropy and Community Support
00:06:59
Speaker
causes inflammation in your body. And at that time, when I started the company, paleo was very popular, keto was very popular. But some of the ideas on
00:07:09
Speaker
what Whole30 disappeared worked well for where my brand was going. So I didn't believe in like stevia or sugar alcohols because anything that I read about these new to the world sugar alternatives didn't convince me that it's right product for children. They are hormone disruptors. They impact your gut microbe. There are several things and they're new to the world. They have not been tested enough to actually know how they impact us in the long run.
00:07:39
Speaker
So I aligned well with Whole30 philosophy and that's the reason we got Whole30 approval on our product. Very interesting. Yeah, thanks for the share on that one. Now you guys lean into organic more and certainly more loudly than most. Food companies that are doing good things for people and the planet always have more constraints than those that don't.
00:08:03
Speaker
Only imagine how difficult it is to stay focused on a supply chain that is so dedicated to organic. Can you just walk us through a little bit about the journey of either migrating into organic or always just sticking with organic ingredients as you kind of go through building out these sauces?
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, I am glad you pointed out the logistical challenges of being 100% organic, which is what all our products are. There are trade-offs that we had to make. When we initially started, our spices were not organic. And when we started looking for a lot of Indian and Mexican spices, it was very challenging to find organic sources for everything. So we had to make a few compromises, or when we found a supplier, we bought in bulk
00:08:52
Speaker
to last us for a long period of time because we didn't know if we would get that supply again. There are certain products that we have not been able to launch because we just couldn't find a supplier that could supply those ingredients as certified organic.
00:09:10
Speaker
It is a challenge, but overall I do feel organic is not just good for us as humans, but also for the planet. You already are aware of, like I know Corinne, you are so much into the food world. You know how organic practices help keep the soil as nourished as possible, and we believe in
00:09:30
Speaker
You know leaving the planet better if not worse Right or not do not take away as much from the planet as what we have been taking for years now and I think just sticking to organic help us Keep true to that promise and good food for good was meant to do you know, I wonder I guess it's one of those situations where
00:09:55
Speaker
People want to do all sorts of initiatives. They want to give back. They're very philanthropic. There's good people out there. But when the food supply chain isn't organic and it's in fact an extracting, harmful process, sometimes I just worry that people maybe are distracted with yet another recycling program.
Availability and Conclusion
00:10:16
Speaker
I'm like, hey,
00:10:17
Speaker
We need to focus on the core pieces, and I feel like organic is really one of them. It's a really important baseline. In fact, recently I feel like regenerative organic is starting to come up in more and more conversations, which is wonderful. Let's lean into that healing practice of farming and other initiatives.
00:10:37
Speaker
But it all starts with organic just straight up every day organic. So appreciate the way you and your team have leaned into that in your product line. Would you be willing to share with us which product is like the most popular? I'm going to make a guess and I'll say it out loud first. Then you can totally agree with me or you can tell me I'm crazy. But I feel like is your ketchup your number one seller? That's correct.
00:11:04
Speaker
I nailed it. I would have no reason to know that other than I hear people talk about it all the time. The one that I talk about all the time is your butter chicken, which is remarkable and dairy free, which I'm so grateful for. And it's really, really delicious. And I've made butter chicken all sorts of different ways. And one time I used a recipe offline.
00:11:26
Speaker
And i was making and you know so so in the kitchen can i realize i was making a recipe for like forty people it was one of these family like family event recipes or i didn't toggle the little calculator to like make it for three people anyway so butter chicken was around for a while i love butter chicken i love i love your sauce but,
00:11:46
Speaker
Okay, let's go back to the ketchup. So ketchup is one of these categories where everybody, okay, most people know that standard ketchup has a lot of things in it that they shouldn't have. Well, it has sugar, a lot of sugar. Yours doesn't. And yours tastes amazing. What was the process like of bringing ketchup? Because that's a crazy category.
00:12:09
Speaker
Not one that I would venture into very quickly or lightheartedly. So obviously you're going, it's like going into the dragons. Den, talk to us about ketchup. What's it been like putting that out into the world?
00:12:21
Speaker
It hasn't been easy. It hasn't been easy. That's not the first product that we launched. Our Indian sauces were definitely before ketchup, and it was actually inspired by some of our early customers. Because we were using dates in our sauces, they asked me, can you do a ketchup? Because my child eats so much ketchup, and it has so much sugar. So we started working on recipes, and our consumer base or our test market was kids.
00:12:50
Speaker
every time we would make a sample, we would have some kids try it to see if they would like it or not. At the end of the day, a lot of kids consume ketchup and ketchup in obnoxious quantities. And I would say if your child eats broccoli with ketchup, I would rather let them have broccoli than
00:13:07
Speaker
you know then take the catch up and then they stop eating broccoli that's how we got into the category i don't think i did enough research before launching it was meant to be a product that satisfied my consumer needs.
00:13:24
Speaker
And that's how I've always been. The focus of the brand has always been very consumer-centric. So we have this customer in mind who really cares about what... And that's our real consumer. We call her Lisa. She really cares about what she puts in her body. She avoids sugar. She eats organic. She is not eating dairy for health reasons or for whatever reasons. But it's very conscious of what she's putting in her body. So my whole goal
00:13:52
Speaker
has become to make her life easy. And that's the consumer that we tend to attract. It's a consumer who really, really cares about what they, they prioritize food and what they put in their bodies. So I've just always stayed in my lane. Yes, there's competition in the market, but there's competition in no matter
00:14:12
Speaker
where you launch, no matter what you do, which is actually a good thing. It means there is market that exists. If you have a product which is the only one of its kind, it sometimes does not work that well for you. So it's good to have competition. We never say we are Heinz competitor. We are nowhere close, neither in terms of flavor nor in terms of pricing. It's a condiment alternative for people who really care about what they're putting in their body. I'm not trying to say,
00:14:42
Speaker
You know, I'm the next times that was never my ambition or my goal. My goal was to serve Lisa. So I have to go back for a second here. You just said ketchup on broccoli. Do people do that? Is that a thing that's never happened in my life? I've never seen it. I didn't know that it was a thing.
00:15:03
Speaker
It is a thing, and I have had customers send me videos of kids just dipping their chicken finger or whatever they were eating in ketchup, making the ketchup and then using the food as a spoon to eat our ketchup. And those things just make my day when people send me, like a kid enjoying it, makes my day. I love it. Okay. Yes. I mean, I've seen, you know, my daughter scoops it with ketchup with her finger. Okay. But I never thought broccoli would get into the mix. So.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, it took me a while to find my cooking rhythm to get my daughter excited about vegetables. We're there now. Now she's 10 and she eats her vegetables first, which is a miracle. And she's not trying to just suffer through it. She's excited. And whenever we sit down, if not everyone's seated at the table at the same time, like if she's usually there first, which that's a nice thing to have, there's a rule in our house that you can sneak food off your plate before the meal has started if it's vegetables.
00:16:03
Speaker
So you can't sneak anything else, but if someone's coming to the table late and you're hungry, you're allowed to eat your vegetables first with no rules around vegetables really. So that's worked out well. But yeah, if vegetables are getting used as a serving utensil for ketchup, that's interesting.
00:16:22
Speaker
All of your sauces are in glass jars. I'm guessing that was a very intentional decision by you, given that the condiment space is full of other types of packaging. A lot of squeeze bottles. There's a lot of squeeze bottles and plastic containers. Talk to us about glass.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. We've been asked since the time I launched the catch-up to put it in the squeeze bottle. And I intentionally, maybe it's a good business decision, but again, good food for good is more about just making good business decisions. We are about creating food or creating a business that's good for the planet, that's good for us, that's good for community at large.
00:17:03
Speaker
Overall, with all the recycling initiatives that have happened, only 9% of the plastic ever created has ever been recycled. It is more expensive to recycle plastic than create new plastic. It is not something that makes a good business decision for recyclers either. So that just gets everything we use in plastic, whether it's a small pouch, a single wrapper, it all goes to waste.
00:17:31
Speaker
to landfills. And as a company that wants to not create more waste, we decided to choose glass. It is more expensive for us. The recycling rate for glass is also low. It's about 33%. We can still do more, but reusability of glass is a lot more than plastic. So a lot of people I know use our jars as spice jars. A lot of glass that comes into my house, actually, I have a shelf full of empty glasses. And most people like us have a shelf full of empty glass jars.
00:18:00
Speaker
because we don't want to throw them and we are finding occasions to use those glass jars. That's the reason we stuck with glass and until date I have not found an option that could replace glass that does not destroy the planet anymore.
00:18:19
Speaker
Well, I appreciate it. And it's not an area that's easily tackled and you guys are doing it beautifully. I don't have a shelf full of glass jars, but we have used one of your butter chicken sauce jars for pencil crayons. The problem is you have a tall jar and it's the pencil crayons get used to get shorter and shorter and shorter. And so, you know, we, we, that didn't last forever. I'm sorry to say it didn't stay on, on my kid's desk for longer than, you know, a few weeks, but we tried.
00:18:47
Speaker
It works fine for spices, for tri-spices. I love it. That's a great idea. I really like it. And my wife will get to use the label maker. That's one of her greatest joys, is label making. I love it too. Yeah. I love those label makers.
00:19:02
Speaker
You have an initiative that is a buy one, feed one initiative. And I've heard this in other formats and other ways of description, but this was a new one, or at least the way you approach it was refreshing. Would you share with us a little bit about that program?
00:19:20
Speaker
So again, as the name suggests, good food for good. So there is a for good part of everything we do. And then I started the company, I learned a lot about hunger, how hunger is one of the most solvable problems that the world has. We have enough food in this world, we just are, it's not just not distributed well. So it's distribution of wealth issue more so than we don't have enough food issue. So the idea of good food for good was how can we help
00:19:49
Speaker
food fight hunger, which is technically with food. So every time we buy our product, we feed a person in need. We have partnerships with food banks in Canada, India, and the US. So we give them the amount of money that they need
00:20:08
Speaker
We've donated over 2 million meals. If anybody talks about success of business or my personal success, this is one part that I really feel, if I was doing anything else in the world, I don't think I would have been able to figure out a way to feed 2 million people in need. So if one thing Good Food for Good has done right is have that initiative, do something that I personally wouldn't have done.
00:20:38
Speaker
if this was not the case. Well, you do lots of good things, so excited about that one as well. Thank you. Here's a fun one for you. If there could be any celebrity out there in the world that would suddenly, miraculously, on their own initiative, do an endorsement on their social channel for your product, which celebrity would you want to have do that? He lives in Vancouver. Let me guess, Ryan Reynolds?
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, he's like Jesus Junior, isn't he? I know! Yeah, that guy. I know, so he's listening. Or if you know him. Yes, I don't know Ryan personally. Okay, but is it Ryan or is it Deadpool? Which one? Ryan Ryan. Okay, just straight up Ryan. All right, that's okay. Good deal.
00:21:32
Speaker
For those that are shopping online or in store, where can consumers find all your wonderful sauces?
00:21:39
Speaker
In Canada, we are available pretty much all across Canada in most retailers. You can find us in Loblaws. You can find us in the Canadian Superstore. In Ag West, we are in Thrifties, Whole Foods Market, Sobies, Safeway, Longos, Metro. Yeah, we are pretty much an online at Natural Market and some of the other online retailers. In the US, you can find us in Whole Foods all across the United States. And then we are in Banners.
00:22:08
Speaker
all across body distribution, so like Save Mart in California, there is Safeway and other Tensor divisions in the South, Central Market, Hanaford, so, you know, all around smaller, smaller retailers.
00:22:24
Speaker
That's awesome. I love it. I love seeing you guys growing. It was maybe two, three years ago when I first came across your brand. Since then, I feel like it's just, you're just taking over the world. So congratulations to you and your team for everything you're doing and the way you do it. It's so wonderful for people and the planet. Really appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
00:22:47
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of IL-42. I hope the next time you're looking to load up your pantry, that you give some of these remarkable sauces a chance. To learn more about everything Rich's team is doing, go to goodfoodforgood.ca. Okay, that's it for me. I'm Corwin Hebert from Ethical Food Group, and I'll see you in the future.
00:23:17
Speaker
you