Harry “Guru” Khanna’s Obsession Is Sauce. He Has Spent a Lifetime Creating the Perfect Indian Sauces Using Elite Ingredients and Cryogenic Spices.
Everyone has that one thing that they’re fully committed to. For some, it’s sports. For others, it’s work. For Harry “Guru” Khanna, it’s the sauce.
Khanna owned an Indian restaurant in Toronto from 1986 to 1998. During that time, he built up a large and diverse customer base, many of whom would travel dozens of miles for a single entree. When they asked for a way to bring the food back home with them, the ever-entrepreneurial Khanna began brainstorming. The answer he came to was to give the people sauce.
“My customers always told me that they love my food so much, they want to eat every day,” Khanna explains, “but they couldn’t travel every day to my restaurant. They asked for something they could use at home, and in 1992 I sold my first mason jar of sauce from my restaurant. The customers loved it and told me that it was nearly identical to the culinary experience they had when I cooked for them.”
Khanna’s shift to sauce quickly gained momentum, and in 1998 he sold his restaurant to focus solely on his burgeoning sauce empire. He sold his sauces to local restaurants and trained their chefs to use them to cook simple Indian classics like vindaloo and chicken tikka.
Over this time, Khanna began investing in improving his recipes and creating a truly unique take on Indian cuisine. He sought out funding through the Canada Federal Program and spent the next nine years pouring endless time, energy, and resources into R&D.
The result of this labor of love was three truly one-of-a-kind Indian sauce recipes. Along with impeccable taste, they were allergen-safe, vegan, low-fat and free of dairy, additives, and preservatives. The products were launched under the label Guru Foods Indian Sauces.
Everything was looking up until Khanna faced his first major setback when his third-party jarring plants shut down, bringing a halt to his products for two years. During that time, Khanna refused to remain idle. He continued to work on improving his trio of signature sauces — and that’s when he found his greatest breakthrough: Cryogenic grinders.
“Scientists in Germany had discovered a new form of grinding spices using a Cryogenic grinder,” details Khanna, “This extremely cold option freezes the grinders to temperatures as low as -320 degrees Fahrenheit. This avoids burning the spices or evaporating their oils during the grinding process and helps preserve all of the essential oils and nutritional value present.”
Switching to cryogenically ground spices immediately improved the taste, smell, and overall quality of Khanna’s sauces. It was the missing piece of his condiment masterpiece, and for over half a decade, Khanna’s company continued to grow — until an unforeseen disaster derailed everything once again.
The coronavirus pandemic halted Khanna’s ambitions dead in their tracks as both cryogenic spices and even basic bottling necessities like glass containers became impossible to source through disrupted supply chains. With his livelihood dried up overnight, Khanna turned to Ubering as a way to make ends meet. But his dream of providing the world with the perfect cryogenic sauces never died.
“Guru Sauces was my lifeline, and I was willing to risk my life for the business that I worked so hard to put in place.” So, even as he soldiered on in the face of adversity, fearlessly Ubering frontline workers to and from their jobs, Khanna looked for new loans and new equipment to keep his dream alive. Slowly he cobbled together a new way to jar and sell his premium sauces, this time not just for Canadians but Americans, as well.
At the time of this writing, Khanna is putting the final touches on resurrecting his sauce business. As he lines up cryogenic grinders and bottling equipment, the ambitious Indian business owner is eyeing a mid-2023 return, making his one of the most tenacious, impressive, and delicious business comeback stories of the last century.
About Guru Foods Indian Sauces
Guru Foods Indian Sauces was launched in 2009 by Harry “Guru” Khanna. The Indian ex-restaurant owner created his commercial sauce label to give a global audience access to his premium Indian sauces. These highly sought-after culinary condiments utilize cryogenic spices, avocado oil, and Himalayan salt and are vegan, low-fat, top allergen safe, and free of dairy, gluten, trans-fat, MSG, cholesterol, and additives. Learn more at gurusauces.com.
SOURCE: Guru Foods Indian Sauces
