Mar 14, 2022 · 1h 1m · how-i-built-this
Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz interviews Sukhi Singh and her son Dalbir Singh about how their immigrant family bootstrapped Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Foods from homemade curry pastes into a nationally distributed, multi-million dollar prepared meal brand while retaining complete independent ownership.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 31.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 29:40 Sukhi rejects host assumption about 90s Indian food familiarity
Sukhi directly refutes Guy Raz's assumption that American shoppers were already familiar with Indian cuisine in the 1990s, illustrating the widespread hesitation she faced.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 41:30 Host challenges guest on actual revenue sourcesGuy Raz presses on where the bulk of the company's income originated, challenging whether their branded CPG products were actually secondary to white-labeling and markets.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 42:40 Sukhi explains the grocery basket realizationSukhi educates the host on food retail economics, demonstrating why jarred sauces stall repeat sales compared to high-frequency prepared frozen meals.
Guy holds their own ▶ 0:58 Host articulates consumer repeat purchase economicsGuy Raz demonstrates retail business acumen by explaining the critical dynamic between single-purchase durables and fast-turning consumable products.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Promotional Announcement for the How I Built This Book | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue introduction and book promotion where Guy Raz introduces Sukhi's Gourmet Indian Foods and sets up the narrative arc of the interview. | |
| Sukhis Early Life in Dehradun and Formative Family Influences | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz asks about Sukhi's upbringing in Dehradun and her parents' careers as physicians. Sukhi shares anecdotes about being a tomboy and her father's passion for cooking. | |
| Sikh Heritage Traditions and Courtship with Husband Surinder | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Raz asks about Sikh religious observance and dietary restrictions. Sukhi gently clarifies that strict vegetarianism is formalized rather than universal and explains cultural attitudes toward alcohol and butter. | |
| Culinary Heritage and Fast Batch Cooking Methods in London | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi explains developing quick batch-cooking techniques in London using dehydrated onions and pre-made curry bases to prepare meals in 30 minutes. | |
| The 1984 Anti Sikh Riots and Emigration to America | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi recounts the trauma of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi's assassination, which triggered the family's decision to emigrate to the United States. | |
| Managing an Ice Cream Truck Fleet in California | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi details managing a 20-truck ice cream fleet in the Bay Area, which served as a trial by fire in practical business management and cash handling. | |
| Operating an Oakland Deli and Overcoming Crises and Crime | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi explains buying a downtown Oakland deli, losing morning trade to a coffee competitor, surviving the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and eventually selling after an armed robbery. | |
| Bottling Curry Paste and Breaking into Berkeley Bowl | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi and Dalbir explain bottling curry paste by hand, getting stocked in Berkeley Bowl, and conducting grassroots family food demos. | |
| Renting Shared Commercial Kitchen Space and Overcoming Flavor Hesitancy | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Raz assumes consumers were already familiar with Indian food in the 1990s, but Sukhi corrects him, detailing the heavy hesitation consumers had toward curry and how she converted samplers. | |
| Supplying Hewlett Packard Cafeterias and Securing Dedicated Facility | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi explains landing an account supplying the Hewlett Packard cafeteria and using the consistent revenue to sign a lease on an 1,100 sq ft facility in San Leandro. | |
| Utilizing Farmers Markets as an Essential Cash Flow Engine | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Dalbir highlights how farmers markets provided immediate working capital to finance growth, and Sukhi recounts how they managed around a catastrophic kitchen fire in 2000. | |
| The Next Generation Leaves Corporate Tech for Family Business | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Dalbir describes leaving tech at Macromedia/Adobe to return to the family venture, followed shortly by his sisters Bonnie and Sanjog. | |
| Professional Rebranding and Expansion into Whole Foods Hot Bars | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks about revenue streams after the rebranding to Sukhi's Gourmet Indian Foods; Dalbir explains that farmers markets and Whole Foods hot bars represented the vast majority of income. | |
| A Grocery Demo Revelation and Pivoting to Prepared Meals | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi shares her breakthrough epiphany while observing a customer's shopping basket at Whole Foods Palo Alto, prompting the pivot from shelf-stable paste to fully prepared frozen and refrigerated meals. | |
| Partnering with Costco as a Scalable Retail Growth Engine | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi and Dalbir discuss how Costco's fast 15-day payment terms provided cash flow acceleration and how they targeted stores using localized demographics rather than costly data sets. | |
| Walking Away from a Three Million Dollar Venture Investment | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi and Dalbir describe walking away from a $3 million institutional venture deal the night before signing after realizing the financial incentives favoured investors over family autonomy. | |
| Hitting an Operational Plateau and Hiring First Outside CEO | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Dalbir and Sukhi candidly discuss hitting an operational wall as familial dynamics strained supply chain logistics, prompting them to hire external CEO Bob McHenry. | |
| Mainstream Acceptance and Rising National Popularity of Indian Cuisine | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Dalbir and Sukhi discuss the broader cultural transformation of Indian cuisine in America from exotic and feared to a staple enjoyed by toddlers. | |
| Rejecting Buyout Offers and Preserving Independent Family Ownership | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks about potential acquisition interest; Sukhi shares how the children refused an early buyout offer because the business represented their shared family bond. | |
| Reflecting on Relentless Hard Work Luck and Family Synergy | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sukhi and Dalbir reflect on luck versus hard work, highlighting the non-linear synergy of family members joining forces. |
Statements from this episode (28)
Sukhi's reached $50M revenue and 7,000 stores with zero outside funding
“But today, without taking a shred of outside investment, Sukis is doing an estimated fifty million dollars a year in revenue, and its products are available in around 7000 stores across the country.”
The 1984 anti-Sikh riots prompted the Singh family to leave India
“And the riots were a tipping thing, but the main thing why we came to the U.S. Was that the kids, children would have a better education and a better future in the U.S. So we decided to just take the plunge and move.”
Sukhi Singh's Oakland deli made max profit selling 15-cent coffee for $1
“And it was the maximum profit making business because coffee only costs you 10 to 15 cents, and you sell it for a buck.”
Sukhi Singh sold her Oakland deli for $65,000 after paying $175,000
“Something we had bought for a 175, we sold for 65 and got out.”
Sukhi Singh: Traditional Indian recipes intimidate consumers with excessive ingredient lists
“You know, if you open an Indian cookbook and you look at a recipe, it has 14 ingredients on it, and people just shut the book and they put it away. It's too difficult to collect all that stuff, or to follow those directions, because cooking Indian food is very…”
Sukhi's first retail curry pastes launched without cooking directions
“And you know, the first orders that I put in, it had no directions, only net weight and ingredients, and the name Sukhi's curry paste.”
Store managers accepted Sukhi Singh's cold-call pitches 95% of the time
“I would just call the stores, and you know, 95% of the time, they said, just come in.”
In-store sampling converted 80% of tasters into buyers for Sukhi's
“30% of the people who would walk into the store would stop at the demo table, but About 80% of the people who would taste it would buy it.”
HP's corporate cafeteria bought Sukhi's faster than retail grocery stores
“So for me, every delivery that I made to them was 500 dollars, and it was gone in two weeks. So it was better than any store. I would go and stock up a store, even Berkeley Bowl, I would put 300 dollars worth of product on the shelf, and it took, like, three w…”
Farmers market cash flow funded Sukhi's capital-intensive retail distribution channels
“The farmers markets provided the fuel for everything else in what we were doing. You bought the ingredients on a Monday, you made them during the week, you sent them out on a Thursday or Friday, and you got paid that week for it. So the whole cycle was compres…”
Sukhi's secured 100 retail stores before prioritizing farmers markets
“We had the retail already gone to a hundred stores, and then the farmers markets and food service is what we concentrated on.”
Sukhi's did not miss a single farmers market after a kitchen fire
“So I was very lucky. I had this staff of Indian people who found this It's a restaurant in San Francisco. They had the cooking space available. So I sent off a whole bunch of people over there to start doing the samosas and the naan. And now I found another on…”
Whole Foods recruited Sukhi's to supply their early hot bars
“Whole Foods had approached us and they were just expanding. And a big part of their draw was the hot bars. They were putting out, you know, just Really top quality international cuisine in their hot bars. And they were having a hard time with Indian food. So t…”
Farmers markets once generated over 60% of Sukhi's total revenue
“At that point, the farmers markets were actually, I would say, the majority of our business. 60% plus. I mean, we were at one point doing about 65 markets a week.”
Food brands must sell instantly consumable products to drive repeat purchases
“That time I decided we have to do something which is instantly consumable and they come back for more. That's where I started pushing food service and the frozen food and all because I knew that we had to grow in areas which would be there year round.”
Dalbir Singh: Founders probably wouldn't start if they knew the true costs
“Had we known what we know now about how much money or how much time or how much effort a lot of this stuff takes, we probably wouldn't have started.”
Costco can target inventory down to specific individual warehouse locations
“They have an incredible ability to target actually down to the entire, to the exact store. So sometimes you'll see stuff that's, you know, specific only to five Costco's in the entire country.”
Costco pays suppliers within 15 days, easing cash flow for growth
“But unlike retail stores or food service accounts, they pay you within 15 days. So you have not paid your vendors yet, and you get the money from Costco. So they're an excellent, excellent company to deal with, especially in your growth period.”
Dalbir Singh: 99% of retail food work is getting products off shelves
“I think a lot of food businesses specifically early on, you know, get really excited when you get into Publix or Safeway or Kroger, one of these big stores, and you realize that, you know, as much of a crowning achievement that is to get on the shelf, really, …”
Sukhi's targeted retail expansion using Costco and Whole Foods sales data
“We didn't have money to buy data. For example, you know, there's lots of companies that will sell you data of where this demographic a person is. And this is this, that the other we would follow the lead a lot of times of Costco's or of Whole Foods, where we s…”
Sukhi's was consistently profitable before considering outside institutional investment
“We had never lost money to date. We'd always made money. We'd always been in the black. We did not take any loans other than off and on.”
Dalbir Singh: The VC model means investors win even when founders lose
“The VC model for the most part is if you win, we win, but if you lose, we still kind of win in this process.”
Sukhi's hired an outside CEO to scale and preserve family relationships
“And there was this, you know, need to separate the business from our family life. And, you know, we realized, hey, we could, you know, we need some outside intervention here to help us see this business to its potential, but more importantly really to preserve…”
Sukhi Singh stepped back from management due to lacking strategic scaling knowledge
“I personally, I had, I told the children, I said, listen, Somebody asks us to make something, we make it. But I do not know how to grow this business strategically anymore. I do not know. I need somebody else. I knew that I was at the end of my knowledge what …”
Refrigerated chicken tikka masala is Sukhi's top-selling product
“It's the refrigerated chicken tikka masala.”
Sukhi Singh says she would sell the business to the right buyer
“Yeah, so we would sell if the right person came along, I guess.”
Dalbir Singh contradicts his mother, saying Sukhi's has no plans to sell
“Yeah, I mean, I think there's no particular plan To do that, and I think if you were to talk to mom on any given day, she might give you a different answer much like most entrepreneurs, and so, I don't know, the way that I think about it is, you know, we don't…”