Patak's - from Gujarat, to Kenya, to England to the world

The other day I cooked a curry for dinner but I was feeling a bit lazy so I used the remains of an opened jar of Patak's tikka masala paste that I had in the fridge, for my flavour base. Though I did add lots of mint. I also needed the empty jar for my next (and last) batch of wild plum jam.

I do mostly cook curry from scratch, in my defence, but as I say - I needed the jar.

Anyway I thought I might do one of my looks at companies, hoping to find an interesting story - and indeed there is with a couple of interesting and faintly alarming things discovered along the way.

I'm not sure I knew where I thought it might be from, but I did wonder whether this was going to be one of those inspiring stories of a family building an empire from nothing, or just canny marketing by some mega company. And I found that it's really a bit of both.

The founder of the company - L. G. Pathak was born in Gujarat on a farm in 1925. When his father died he took his family to Kenya where he thought his prospects were better. And indeed they were. There were a lot of Indians in Kenya and so the family decided to make them feel at home by making sweets and snacks for them, which they sold in a shop which became rather successful.

One of these gentlemen must be LG but I don't know which one - probably the one in front. Then in the 50s Kenya became independent, and in 1956 the Pathaks left for England, like, I imagine, most of the Kenyan Indians. They arrived virtually penniless - which I think reinforces the notion that the Indians of Kenya had to leave, and leave their possessions behind. Like many Indians this particular family was industrious, and although LG could not find work, his wife began making samosas and other tasty things in their tiny kitchen in Kentish town and selling them from there. Their sons delivered them all around London. The snacks were so good, that their fame spread and eventually they set up shop again, this time, two years later, behind Euston station.

They still concentrated on the sweets and snacks until one day by accident they ordered too many vegetables and so hit upon the idea of making pickles and chutneys flavoured with the family spice mixes, which became the Patak's curry pastes. When LG retired, his son Kirit took over. His wife Meera hit upon the idea of making curry simmer sauces that would help people to quickly prepare curries at home - like me. The rest, as the website says is history.

And there the story ends on the website. But there is more.

The company grew and grew and in 2007 was eventually acquired by AB Foods (Associate British Foods) a British mega company that owns many, many household brands, the Primark chain of clothes shops and Littlewoods - which used to be a sort of poor man's Marks and Spencers. A great big company anyway. You will find their name in very small print at the bottom of the Patak's web pages. Patak's (they dropped the h in the name) is now part of the AB World Foods Division - somewhat smaller but still very large. And Kirit is still chairman and on the board of AB World Foods, maybe even AB Foods itself - I can't remember which now.

His daughter Anjali is now the face of Patak's and is developing new ranges of products - the first being what they call paste pods - smaller jars really of the curry pastes and now oven bakes. I don't know if you can get them here yet. And, of course, they make other things too - like poppadoms, chutneys and pickles.

paste pots

oven bakes

She seems to have got Jamie Oliver to endorse the products, so it looks like she will be the Patak future. I suspect it's her influence too that has added a range of delicious looking recipes to the website - including four from Jamie Oliver. Yes, of course, they do feature the Patak's spice pastes but they make them interesting by adding other things. Some are almost fusion dishes - something, that apparently Anjali is particularly interested in. Visit the Recipes and Inspirations sections on the website to see what you can do with their pastes. Or anybody else's really.

Which is interesting, because before the takeover by AB Foods there was a scandal involving the family - which stemmed from the Hindu attitude to women.

LG had two daughters as well as four sons. Kirit bought out his brothers at some point so that he was the only one running the business. But I think all the children had shares in the company. However, the girls' shares were given to their mother fore 'safe keeping' and at some point these were taken away from them. By now we are in the late nineteenth century and they have been living in England for decades. The girls grew up there. So understandably they were peeved and eventually took their brother Kirit (and their mother too I believe) to court to get their rightful share of the company back. During the course of the case apparently:

"Mr Pathak had argued that the family's religion meant daughters were not entitled to shares in the family business."

Not good. Particularly since it seems to have been his mother who basically slaved away in her tiny kitchen in Kentish Town and built the business, and his wife who hit upon the idea of the curry simmer sauces which really went gangbusters. And now it's his daughter who looks set to take over. Also - especially sad in the light of all of this - his mother supported him not her daughters. So it's not just Islam which has a very discriminatory attitude to women. Which I have always argued - it's the whole world really. Even the so-called west. But I won't go there.

Anyway it was eventually settled out of court to prevent the bad publicity and the sisters were happy. So I am assuming that when the company was sold for around £200 million, the sisters got a share.

And to end with another somewhat alarming fact. According to one newspaper article I found, Patak's supplies 75% of Britain's Indian restaurants with its spices. Now I use their products, and they are pretty good, but it's sad to think that all those restaurants are using the same limited range of spice pastes rather than making their own. I wonder if they do that here? Maybe I should ask next time I am in one if they make their own spice mixes.

And yes, I do know that there are other brands. Sharwood's being the main one - and I do use them too. It depends which of the two - for they are the dominant two brands - is on special. I don't actually think that one is better than the other. Sharwood's is another story though. And there are lots of other brands on your supermarket shelves and in the gourmet food shops - Charmaine Solomon's range springs to mind. But, as I say, they are other stories. Not to mention AB Foods itself. This is just one of the stories. And always interesting.