The Masterchef Talks: Sashi’s Secret! At Naturally good Expo, Sydney
What is ‘Sashi’s Secret’?
Sashi Cheliah –
Right after winning MasterChef season 10, many people suggested I open a restaurant. Although I can open restaurants every year, I wanted to make something that people can find everywhere. So I collaborated with Katoomba and came up with Sashi’s Secret– and this product can go anywhere!
It’s been two years now, and our products can be found pretty much across all of Australia with Woolworths. Also, you can get them in most retail outlets or speciality retail outlets, like IGA or Romeo’s food line. We’re trying to expand this even further this year and hopefully, we can go into other retail outlets and overseas as well.
What has been your best and worst feedback?
Sashi Cheliah –
It is very similar to going to a restaurant. You can’t satisfy 100% of the customers. Everybody has a different palate, so 90 per cent or even more would give good feedback on the products or the food. At the same, time, there will be one or two people that might not like it. Especially shrimp paste there is some shrimp paste in for example fried rice. We have good Hizam Indonesian base products, right? So you need to have the shrimp page. You need to have the jam monies to give that nice colour and flavour. And if people don’t like shrimp paste they won’t enjoy that flavour. It’s like durian or blue cheese. If you don’t like them? You don’t enjoy them. But having said that, there is another big spectrum of people who loves those sort of authenticity so we can cater to that 90-odd percent.
At the moment, is your involvement purely from a creative perspective? Or you focussed on sales, volumes and all other aspects as well?
Sashi Cheliah –
No, I’m not focusing on the sales or volume, I’m more on the creative side. The recipes are done by me and conduct the recipe testings. I’m involved in design and packaging, marketing, and social media. Basically, I do what I’m good at and there is a team of professionals who looks after other particular aspects.
Are your current customers generally Aussies, or do you see people with multicultural identities taking interest in this concept? That’d be ultimate seal of approval wouldn’t it?
Sashi Cheliah –
At the moment it is a bit undetectable. First-year, we see a different trend. Second-year has been a different trend. So, it is too early to determine at this moment. Maybe in the coming years, we will be able to answer that question.
What are your future plans and new products that customers can expect in the near future
Sashi Cheliah –
Initially, when we launched this product we had a lot more clients in line. But after COVID, things have changed a bit. So, we are moving more into condiments and we are looking into launching condiments and spice drugs for barbecues for grubs. Therefore we’re also looking into more local Australian-based products because the two years of COVID have taught us a lot of things.
We have also learned that moving forward and being local is very crucial. I think that is going to churn the economy much better. And we are in a position now to get back what we have lost. So we need to make sure all the other businesses grow together.
My last question- There are some products like aniseed or cloves, for example. You can’t grow them in Australia. Like you can but not commercially. So, are we actually looking at trying to figure out how we can grow these ingredients in Australia?
Sashi Cheliah –
I’m not sure about it, but looking at the other things like Southeast Asian aromatics like lemongrass. pandan leaves all are done locally now. You can get them in Queensland and Darwin. And I know there are some spices that can be developed here. But another thing that I want people to understand is local native ingredients. They have a very strong flavour profiling with our Indian spices.
For instance, the modern peppers, taste literally like papers we have then wattle seeds they are also very good like thickening ingredients Garam Masala. Whereas, desert lime is similar to tamarind that we use in our food. So there are a lot of similarities in our native ingredients, which we can substitute with our spices. So that is something that I’m doing at the moment. Not on a product level but more on the recipe curation level.
And people are appreciating local native products at a moment. So, but the sad thing is, it’s not cost-effective at the moment for the general public. So once that comes, effective, and easy to purchase. I think a lot more people will buy.