AT THE GEDERA TABLE #5: Why create a Home Cooking Kit product?
During one of our weekly calls one day, Gedera & Co team member Samia asked me, “How did you come up with the Home Cooking Kit? Like, you could have chosen any kind of product to start your business. How did this specific type of product come about?”
I loved this question and wanted to explore this on At The Gedera Table.
Why a Home Cooking Kit?
First and foremost, I really wanted people to taste Sri Lankan food. And secondly, for people to be able to make it easily and conveniently.
During COVID lockdowns, everyone was ordering Indian food as takeaway. But not Sri Lankan food. So, I thought to myself: Where can I find authentic Sri Lankan food out in the city?
Although there are quite a few Sri Lankan people living in Australia, Sri Lankan food isn’t well-known, nor is it really represented authentically in grocery stores or restaurants. There is at least one South Asian brand in the grocery store that does a ready-made Sri Lankan Curry simmer sauce — but, if I’m being honest with you, it’s not very good. Plus, it’s filled with greasy fillers.
For me, I could easily cook Sri Lankan comfort food every day for my family. But that isn’t the case for many people. During lockdowns, especially, so many people were missing the warmth and healing powers of comfort food. I thought about young Sri Lankan people who immigrated to Australia and haven’t quite mastered Sri Lankan cooking. And how they, too, must be missing the authentic flavours of our homeland.
It was Ammi (an iconic chef, as we know!), who said:
Why don’t you put these spices in a pouch and send it to people?
I loved this idea. And it got me thinking that in addition to spices, there are two essentials that need to be readily available for good Sri Lankan cooking: aromatics and coconut milk.
Not everyone cooks with or uses coconut milk regularly; so, if you buy a can of coconut milk, it might go bad sitting in your refrigerator after you use a bit of it for a recipe. My Ammi prefers using coconut milk powder, as opposed to fresh coconut milk, even when she was living in Sri Lanka. It’s more convenient. So, I incorporated that idea into the mix.
In addition to coconut milk, we also don’t want people to buy a bunch of specialty spices and aromatics that take up space in our cupboards — getting dry, brittle, and losing flavour as the years go by. And something like pandan leaves? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack in an Aussie grocery store!
With the spice blend, aromatics pouch, and coconut milk powder in mind, the rest fell into place so naturally: the Home Cooking Kit. If you put all of it together and add your fresh ingredients, you get an effortless meal. No trips to multiple grocery stores required, no bulk ingredients that go bad, and no need for multiple measuring spoons to get the right proportion of spices.
I was talking to a friend the other day and she mentioned that one day, she had just come home from work and she saw that she only had an onion and a tomato in the fridge. But then, she remembered she had the Lentil Curry Kit in the cupboard. She cooked some spinach and rice, and together with the Lentil Curry she threw together quickly, she had a whole meal ready for the family.
I’m creating products for real people — busy professionals and fulltime breadwinners, moms wearing many hats, adventurers who love trying something new, and people who don’t like cooking but want something that tastes good and is easy to make. And it is so satisfying to be on this journey. With the Home Cooking Kit, our customers co-create the experience and get to know Sri Lankan flavours as their chopping, mixing, and simmering — all with ease.
On a logistical level: I wanted Gedera & Co. to be an eCommerce business, so the Home Cooking Kit concept worked really well for this. No need for simmer sauces in jars with preservatives and fillers. The Home Cooking Kit lasts well in the pantry, and is light-weight, which is great for shipping. A bonus is that it has a smaller carbon footprint, too.
Looking back, I had a lot of fun developing this product: talking to people about it, doing research, testing recipes in the kitchen with Ammi. I want you to feel this sense of fun, curiosity, and lightheartedness, too, when you’re cooking with the Kits. I want you to feel empowered that you, too, can make easy and authentic Sri Lankan food with just a few ingredients you have on hand. After a long day, I hope we can all spend less time in the kitchen and more time around the dinner table with our loved ones. ✨
Cheers,
Jayani S.
Founder of Gedera & Co.