It began with coriander, a spice whose distinct taste Bobby Antony had relished as a child. Once she began running her kitchen and buying packets of spice off the shelf, she missed the nostalgic taste of her aunt’s flavoured curries. “I could never find that taste of coriander in my curries,” she says with a smile sitting at Bobby’s Spice Tree, a condiments boutique she opened recently at Justice Krishna Iyer Road in Panampilly Nagar. Bobby’s venture has come at the end of three years after she began making her own concoctions and spice mixtures.
In search of that haunting taste she began visiting farmers and procuring whole spices and processing it manually — washing, drying, and pounding. Soon she was flooded with requests from “friends and cousins” to provide them clean and fresh spices. “It was by default that the volumes increased and I began thinking of business,” she says at the growth of her venture.
Today, Bobby has a whole range of spice powders and mixes that she produces and retails.
Her dogged search for the taste of real spices takes her through different interesting situations. Like a case where a cousin after having sambar at a friend’s wedding in Alappuzha called to tell about its delectable flavour. The sambar mix was made by the friend’s mother-in-law. Bobby sourced authentic proportions from her and created the spice powder, which she retails. The meat masala mix, an all purpose one that can be used with kadala , veg korma and even biriyani , is an exclusive recipe of her aunt Rajamma John.
In hindsight, Bobby narrates a little story from her childhood, which could be the reason she moved into business. “I was always drawn to the world of export and when my father got an offer to set up his dry cleaning unit in West Asia, I wished to go there and run it. But my father was disapproving of a girl venturing out in business. I felt so down at this,” she says adding that today the scene has completely changed. “I am talking to bhaiyyas in North India, procuring whole spices and sending the powdered form there. My husband has been a pillar of support. How much the times have changed for women,” she says.
It was the desire to grow in business that saw Bobby join courses on food processing, packaging and learning the nitty-gritty involved. She began contacting wholesalers in Guntur for large volumes. Soon the five kilos of spice that she made for home consumption grew to 500 kilos for retail. As business demands increased, Bobby took a mill on lease in Thykoodam and a small packaging unit near by. The work shifted from home to the mill. Moving ahead she introduced many new masalas mixes like Goan vindaloo mix, Chettinad curry powder, Tandoori and other North Indian masalas, Coorg pandi curry mix and such. She even introduced door delivery to city clients. Her gift boxes have Indian chai masala, vanilla cardamom tea and vanilla sugar.
Her husband suggested the name of her enterprise and helped her retail. Today she supplies spices to many city hotels.
Many teachers of St. Teresa’s Convent and St. Antony’s school are her regular customers, just as a few clients from Thrissur, where the spices are couriered to. Her clients from West Asia pick spices in large volumes. “Kochi is not a city for me. It’s a feeling, as they say about the city. I should contribute to it and I do so by providing unadulterated spices,” she says.
