Choosing a hamper for someone you hardly know
A new manager, a neighbour, your child’s teacher: safe choices when you do not know someone’s tastes.
How we choose the kitchens that make our sweets
Three family kitchens in Bengaluru, a tasting table and the small checks we run before any sweet goes in a box.
We do not make sweets ourselves. We buy them each morning from three family kitchens in the city, and choosing those kitchens took us longer than anything else in the business.
When Shalini was looking in 2018, she visited fourteen kitchens across Malleswaram, Basavanagudi and Rajajinagar. She looked for three things: ghee bought in sealed tins rather than loose, a kitchen she was allowed to walk into at any time, and sweets that tasted the same on a Tuesday as on a Saturday. Three passed. One makes our laddoos and Mysore pak, one our chikki and ellu bella, and one our savouries.
We still taste every morning. At 9 am, before packing starts, two of us taste one piece from each tray that has come in. We check the date on every box, the ghee smell, the texture and whether the laddoos hold together. Perhaps twice a month a tray goes back, usually because it was made too early or is drier than it should be. The kitchen replaces it within the hour.
We pay our kitchens within seven days and agree prices before each festival season, so they can buy ghee and sugar early. In return, they hold back our share of every batch during the Deepavali rush. That arrangement is why our sweets are still made the morning they are packed, even in the busiest week.
