Issue 56 / Good Food For Good's Focus On Feeding The Global Family

by Geeta Wahab

Good Food For Good’s Focus On Feeding The Global Family

Jun 30, 2016

Richa Gupta wanted families to have nutritious healthy choices. Add the global charity initiative as part of her company's mantra and you have the recipe of a win-win business.

Good Food For Good was created by Richa Gupta three years ago to fill a delicious need on the dining table. With a food conscious mind, she set forth to produce a yummy product to make both parents and little ones happy. I got the chance to sit down with her to find out more about her food empire, the value of a nutritious meal and feeding those in need.

^{Richa Gupta, founder of Good Food For Good.

Photo Credit: Good Food For Good}

Geeta Wahab: What inspired you to start Good Food For Good?

Richa Gupta: The inspiration for Good Food For Good came from my need to put a heathy meal on the dinner table after a full day at work. Some nights I didn’t have the time (or energy) to make dinner for my family from scratch and I sought the convenience of packaged food.

However, I was frustrated by the available options for packaged food — while they offered convenience they were all deficient in nutrients and overly generous in the use of additives and preservatives. So, the idea for Good Food For Good was born from my immense dissatisfaction with the current food system. I created the business with the vision to make a difference in two of the world’s biggest food related issues — abundance of bad food and scarcity of food for a significant segment of the world’s population.

GW: How did you select the sauces you made?

RG: I chose to launch the line with cooking sauces because I truly believe cooking is the best thing we can do for our health. I also know how difficult it is to cook from scratch every day so I decided to create sauces that offer both quality and convenience. My sauces are made with fresh, whole and organic ingredients and are free of dairy, gluten, soy, corn and refined sugar.

I launched with Indian and Mexican cooking sauces because I love these cuisines and also because Canadians are increasingly interested in cooking these cuisines at home. Both of these cuisines require ingredients that most Canadians don’t have in their pantry and when I launched there weren’t any good quality sauces available in the market.

^{Sauces from Good Food For Good.

Photo Credit: Good Food For Good}

GW: How did you get into non-South Asian sauces?

RG: I have always loved variety in my food, even though I am South Asian I don’t cook Indian food more than once a week. I love different flavours and have always been cooking meals from different cultures. I chose to launch a line of Mexican cooking sauces because I saw a gap in the market and knew I could make a difference. We are the only brand of Mexican cooking sauces that are made with fresh, whole and organic ingredients. We also use traditional chilies like ancho for our enchilada sauce, chile de árbol for our taco sauce and serrano for our tomatillo sauce.

I recently launched a line of ketchup sweetened with dates after hearing from several mom’s how they were unhappy about the amount of sugar their kids were ingesting through their ketchup.

GW: What inspired you to expand into turmeric teas?

RG: As the awareness of the many health benefits of turmeric grows, Canadians are looking to add it to their diet. However, most Canadians find this difficult as they really don’t know how to use turmeric.

I have had numerous people approach me at farmer’s markets and ask for tips on adding turmeric to their diet. I felt there was a need to bring turmeric out of the medicine cabinet and make it easy for people to enjoy turmeric’s anti-inflammatory and other benefits.

Turmeric Teas is a line of certified organic tea and tisanes with turmeric root. I have created four different blends based on four common needs — Dawn (energizing chai blend), Dusk (calming lemongrass blend), Summer (cooling mint blend) and Winter (warming ginger blend).

^{Turmeric Teas

Photo Credit: Good Food For Good}

GW: The teas are delicious! I like that they are crafted in a way that the turmeric is subtle and complimentary to the teas and can be enjoyed hot or cold. Can you tell me a little about how Good Food For Good helps the community?

RG: We are all about "Eat Good and Do Good". Every time you buy one of our foods, we not only make a difference on your plate through good food, we also donate a meal to fight world hunger.

We have two primary organizations we donate to: The Akshaya Patra Foundation in India (they serve fresh lunch meals to 1.4 million kids every day) and Food Banks Canada (a national charitable organization dedicated to helping over 850,000 Canadians living with food insecurity every month). Besides these two organizations we are very active in local community too. We are donating Turmeric Teas at Canadian Cancer Society Relays for Life all across the Greater Toronto Area and we have done events like I Eat to Feed T.O. where we served a four course menu and all profits from the event were donated to FoodShare Toronto.

GW: Where can we find your products?

RG: You can find our sauces at Whole Foods Market, The Big Carrot, Fiesta Farms, select Loblaws stores and many other independent retailers listed on our website at goodfoodforgood.ca. Our ketchups are available at Longos all across the Greater Toronto Area along with Whole Foods Markets and other locations mentioned above. Our Turmeric Teas are mostly online and you can order at TurmericTeas.com

GW: What's next for the company?

RG: We have spent the last two years building out our sauces, ketchup and tea product lines. Our focus now is reach out to more and more Canadians and make a difference on their plate. We need their help to make a difference in this fight against bad food and no food.

^{Ketchup by Good Food For Good.

Photo Credit: Good Food For Good}

^{Main Image Photo Credit; Good Food For Good}

Geeta Wahab

Author

Cultivating a life she loves, Geeta (@geets.suites) is chasing all her passions, including her love for home décor. As a brand new home owner, her current journey has launched her further into that world - check out her Instagram @geets.suites for tidbits of her story and other decorating pieces. A...