Spreading the goodness
It started modestly enough, with a parent’s desire to provide good food for her child, but quickly grew into a social enterprise that is making waves.
“I was sick of processed food – yoghurt, bars and cereal that pass for ‘healthy’, but are loaded with sugar,” says Richa Gupta. “We start our days with a cupful of sugar! We take a cookie away from a child but will pour ketchup over potatoes without realizing every tablespoon contains more sugar than a cookie. We are so conscious of the fuel we put in our cars but buy the most unhealthy food and what is food but fuel for our bodies? As a generation, we’ve lost touch with the things that matter, we’ve moved away from basics that were simple and good.”
Gupta was working for a multinational food company at the time and says while she enjoyed her time with them, she realized she was becoming detached. She wasn’t inspired by what she was doing.
She did her MBA at Schulich and wanted to work in a non-profit. She wanted to make a difference.
She quit her job in August 2013 and launched Good Food For Good the following month.
“With no previous business experience, and in case you’re wondering, I didn’t inherit the business gene! I did this because I believed it was possible to make food products with no sugar, no preservatives, no additives, and also help feed someone else.”
Growth was slow the first year as she built up a steady clientele at farmers’ markets. At one of them, a representative from Whole Foods showed interest in her sauces. This was when she was still at what she describes as her “craft paper labels and one-week shelf life stage” but took the leap of faith.
Today, the Good Food For Good range is available in 1500 stores across Canada and in 200 in California. And for every bottle of sauce sold, Gupta donates a meal to a person in need. They’ve donated hundreds of thousands of meals, working with Akshay Patra Foundation in India and with food banks in Canada and California.
Which is not to say there are no challenges.
“A lot of people think I can make this, let me market it,” says Gupta. “But that’s not why I started it. I’m not in it to find a salary replacement, The purpose was to make a difference. It was to meet a need.”
Gupta left India for the US in 2003. In 2004, she visited Vancouver with her husband Prashant Dube and the two fell in love with the place. “It was so breathtakingly beautiful, the people were so nice.”
They moved to Canada from California in 2005, and came up against the lack of Canadian experience barriers that most newcomers continue to face.
She tells those who dream of entrepreneurship to stop thinking somebody has it all figured out.
“Just go for it. Everything I’ve done, I’ve just followed my gut. This idea got me so excited that not to give it a try would have been a waste of my time on the planet.”