Interview with Aman Singh, September 22, 2022

|00:00:00| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is September 21, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Mr. Aman Singh. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled "Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shape the Story of Asian Dallas." Thank you so much for sitting for this interview. To start out with, can you tell me just where and when you were born?

|00:00:31| Singh Sure. I was born in Chandigarh, India on December 21, 1975.

|00:00:40| Brody What brought you and your family to Texas?

|00:00:42| Singh Well, my parents were looking for a better opportunity and a better life. Even though they were pretty well set up over there. But I think in 00:01:00terms of the ethics of the kind of job that my dad had, being part of government and being a part of the state stuff, he just didn't like the way things worked. And so he wanted a place- He wanted to move to a place where he felt he can earn a more honest living without having to kind of succumb to the minor corruptions in the system that he was encountering as a young man. And he was being very idealistic. So he said he wanted to get out of here. And my dad's older brother at the time, one of his older brothers, was already living here in Virginia, Maryland area. And so he offered to sponsor us. And so my dad and my mom and myself in tow, I was only a year and a half, we ended up emigrating to the US.

|00:01:40| Brody What year was that?

|00:01:41| Singh That was around 1977, I believe. My parents would have a better date, but I know we landed here on June 7th or June 6th in 1977.

|00:01:53| Brody And you went to Virginia?

|00:01:55| Singh Yes. We came into the D.C. port, I guess, whatever that is. And then we ended up living in Virginia or Maryland at the time with my uncle and his wife and their young family. My older cousins, who are like my big sisters now. But yeah, we stayed with them for several months, I think, until my dad, who is a geologist by trade, ended up finding an opportunity down in Texas with the oil companies to work. So that's when we made the move to Texas.

|00:02:25| Brody Okay. So you made it to Texas and your dad was working in the oil industry. How did you end up doing what you're doing now?

|00:02:34| Singh Oh, that's quite a long story. So we when we established ourselves here in Dallas, my dad got a job with Mobil at the time. It wasn't "ExxonMobil" it was just Mobil and Exxon were separate. So before that merger, he was working just as a petroleum geologist, I guess, with the company, and he 00:03:00lasted about four or five years. And then he was part of a layoff, which we felt was potentially questionable in terms of why he was laid off. We thought maybe there might be some ulterior reasons outside of just performance that he was let go. So after that experience, I think my dad was like, "I don't want to have to work for anybody again." So he looked at opportunities and we had some local friends and family here that were in the jewelry business actually. And it was like a wholesale jewelry. And so he got into that with a little bit of their help and very quickly established a wholesale jewelry business where he would represent different lines of jewelry and sell to retailers. That was for a good ten to fifteen years. We did that into the into the mid-nineties I would say. But during that time my mom, you know, she loved to cook, she loved to make food. And obviously being Indian immigrants, there wasn't a whole lot available 00:04:00for us to really purchase and buy. So my mom experimented with kulfi at home and used a recipe from her-that was passed down to her- from her grandmother to her mother to her and ended up really kind of perfecting that recipe to where family and friends really loved my mom's kulfi. It was like a mother's hug on a stick, is what I call it. It was just made the authentic way. She took the time and the labor to slow cooked the milk, caramelize it down, then very laboriously pouring them into molds, having to wait, you know, three or four hours before sticking the sticks in there so that they could stay in place because it was like half frozen. And then finally overnight it froze and then taking the kulfis out. Like so it was a pretty laborious process. And but she did that. She took that care and love in making it. And it showed in the pleasure of our family and friends when they ate it. So much so that they would encourage her like, "You really 00:05:00should do something with this. It's that good? Like it reminds us of home. Like we get visions of our childhood when we eat this product. It's so authentic and so familiar." So the nostalgia factor was big, but it wasn't until like the late nineties when the market finally started kind of coming to life. I guess all these H-1B visa immigrants had started moving to the DFW area. Because of that, the Indian grocery store scene started popping up. So by 2000 or so, we started seeing quite a number of Indian grocery stores and Pakistani grocery stores and other South Asian grocers popping up everywhere to serve that market. So that's when my parents decided, "Let's make a batch of that kulfi and see what people think." They had done it a long time back. I think in the eighties there was a stint where they made some and there was a local Indian store run by one of our family friends in Carrollton. And at that time, there just wasn't enough of a 00:06:00market. I mean, the response was amazing. Like, they loved it and they wanted it, but we just didn't have the bandwidth or the resources to maintain that ongoing. So we kind of had to shelve it. But the late nineties brought the opportunity back, so my mom ended up making another batch of kulfis. My dad took it out to one of the local Indian grocery stores. Possibly Taj Mahal imports. I'm not sure which one it was, but literally sold out the same day. And then everything started from there. Like we realized we had something. In fact, I think we had gotten a response from somebody that had remembered us from the eighties, from that one time we had it at that little store. Like he still remembered, and he always wondered what happened to us, and that guy was willing to kind of help us out as well, like in terms of distribution. But we ended up getting set up our own place and then I, my brother, younger brother at the time I was finishing college, he was in high school, and we were helping on the side with the manufacturing and the distribution of it just locally. Like, you know, during the week, I'd be going to school, I'd come home from college and then I'd 00:07:00start cooking the milk, you know, and we'd bought a bigger, like one of those portable stoves. We started cooking on a 20-gallon stockpot. You know, we started getting milk from Kroger's by the by the crate. And so I started making the product that way. So I'm, you know, stirring the milk, every evening while watching Seinfeld, and then, mixing the stuff up in the morning and then taking, getting the flavor made. And we would make it at home for the longest time. But within a very short time, we actually enlisted the help of a co-packer. And the co-packer was a small Mexican ice cream factory that was in downtown Dallas called, it was a paleteria, where they make the Mexican paletas on pushcarts. So we actually contracted them to make the product into the pops so we would make the milk, and then I would take that milk and mixed milk, flavored milk to them, and then they would then turn it into the kulfi pops with our molds. And then 00:08:00later in the day after I would finish my job or school or work, I'd go back in the afternoon, pick up the frozen product, ready, ready-made, finished product and put it in our storage freezers to be delivered throughout the week. And that's kind of how we did things for about a year until we got our own facility. And then that gentleman helped us set up our own plant, knowing he would lose our business. But he knew that it was growing beyond his capacity, that we needed our own place. So then we ended up getting his help and his assistance to set up our own plant and started out in our own factory in earnest. And from there, we started in full force.

|00:08:31| Brody What was his name?

|00:08:33| Singh His name was Raul Rodriguez, and he was the owner of Frutitas Paleteria, and it was on Jefferson down in Dallas. Really, really kindhearted, generous man. He really was enterprising enough to see what we were doing and 00:09:00generous to help us with it. And we wouldn't have been where we are today without his initial support. So we thank him for his support and help and friendship. And, you know, when we set up our new plant here in 2020, we actually invited him to come, come take a tour of it and see what we built. And he was really, really happy to see that.

|00:09:12| Brody How did you initially meet him?

|00:09:14| Singh You know, my dad, he's a hustler. He just gets out there and he's not shy. So he saw these guys in downtowns selling these things, thinking, "This is not any different than what we do, really." So he just bought a few things from these street cart vendors and looked at the packaging and on the back of the packaging just called the number, you know, because they had their contact information and a couple of people were not interested. But the one from Frutitas, he was open to the conversation. So my dad went and visited them and told them what we did and how we do it. And he like the idea and thought, "Sure, I'll help you. Why not?" You know, understanding that we're not competing in the same market, you know, we're not going to be selling to the people that buy his 00:10:00products. So he was fine with it, and it worked out really nicely.

|00:09:56| Brody That's a really nice story. So. Tell me about kulfi and about Kaurina's.

|00:10:02| Singh Sure. So kulfi is what, you know, people would basically deem as Indian ice cream. It is caramelized, cooked down milk, usually done over hours of simmering. It's like a natural condensed milk. I mean, typical condensed milk you get from the grocery store in a can is reconstituted solids. But this is actually we take the milk, namely half and half milk, and slow cook it and reduce it down. So as it's cooking, it's caramelizing, it's adding a kind of sweet, nutty notes to it naturally. Add our sugar, continue to caramelize, and then finish it off with like a thickening solution. And then- which is mainly just like starches and water and stuff that help thicken it like you do with soups and things. And so after it's finished, then we can add our flavor to 00:11:00it and then pour it into a mold. What makes kulfi unique is unlike ice cream, it contains no eggs, it contains no stabilizers, it contains no gums, and there's no air in the product. When it's poured into a mold and frozen, there's zero overrun, as they call it, in the industry, which means zero air. Most, all ice creams in the industry that you get in a pint or in a container. And even those kind of big, round, thick bars that you see, like the Haagen-Dazs or Ben and Jerry's, those have air in them too because they're extruded out of a tube and then a stick is inserted into them and then they're frozen. But ours is a poured mold product. So which is how kulfi is made back in India, and so that poured mold is 100% dense. And so we actually measure our kulfi not by fluid ounces but by net weight. So one bar like would be a three-ounce bar. It's not three fluid ounces, it's three ounces by weight. And that's what makes it different from 00:12:00traditional ice cream. It's a richer, it's more decadent in the taste experience, and it's the caramelization adds another layer of kind of dimension to it. And so that makes it something really more intense in terms of when you eat it and you're supposed to eat it very slowly, you don't rush to eat. Like when you eat ice cream cone, you're very quickly trying to consume it because you don't want it to melt. Well, kulfi being so dense, zero air, you don't have to worry about that. You can slowly enjoy it. 20, 30 minutes, even 40 minutes, it's still on the stick. It's not coming off. And you can just enjoy it until the last bite. And you're not really supposed to bite into it right away. You've got to slowly eat it, lick it and enjoy it and just, you know, take your time and savor. So that's kind of how we tell people to understand the experience of kulfi and what makes it different. And the added benefit of all this is it's 00:13:00better for you nutritionally. So you get half the calories, half the fat, half the sugar of the same size premium ice cream bar that you would have. So because it's made with half and half milk, it's only 10% butterfat unlike ice cream, which is made with heavy cream and other high calorie ingredients, higher sugars too. The natural caramelization process of our cook adds a little sweetness to the milk, so we don't have to add as much sugar. So that also lends it to just being a little bit, quote unquote, healthier that for you than a traditional ice cream.

|00:13:30| Brody In India, how is kulfi eaten? Is it eaten at certain times in certain ways?

|00:13:37| Singh From what I understand, and I haven't grown up in India, but I understand that it is a street product, like meaning it's something that's sold on a street vendor, street cart. They, you know, the "kulfi wallah" as they call them, he or she may be making the kulfi the night before, the milk, and then 00:14:00pouring and freezing into molds for overnight, being freezing them overnight. And then the next day they sell whatever they've made, right? And they come in the individual molds. It can be like aluminum molds that they form into and they're the same conical shape as our kulfi. And sometimes they have a stick, sometimes they don't, depending on where you are, in what region. Because kulfi is something that is highly localized. It's not like standard anywhere. So from one kulfi wallah to the next, the recipe may vary. So somebody's kulfi, maybe a little bit thicker and richer. Other kulfi might be not as much. Others might have different inclusions like different kinds of nuts or spices they might put into it. But generally speaking, caramelized milk is pretty standard. The inclusions maybe like some pistachios or cashews or almonds, cardamom, saffron, fruit, dried fruit of kind. So depending on the region, the area, what's 00:15:00popular, that's how you'll experience kulfi. In India, it varies from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood. And also you might get it at a restaurant, as a kind of a delicacy for after a nice meal. So that's typically how people eat it there. It's not even very commercial. It might be now today. I haven't been back in a while, but that's what I remember from when I used to visit and stuff, that it was a very, very localized street vendor kind of thing. It wasn't something that was commercial or sold in any kind of store, you know.

|00:15:24| Brody So your family's business started out in your mom's kitchen with your grandma's or great grandma's recipe. And tell me about the progression and where you're at now from where you started.

|00:15:39| Singh Sure. Started from the kitchen table. Very soon, got our own little manufacturing kitchen, commercial kitchen slash miniature factory. It was like 2000 square feet and that was like early 2000. Like 2000 is when we 00:16:00established our facility. And that was down on like Northhaven area, Northaven and Josey. And then we did that operation for a good, solid, you know, ten years or so. And then ten years in, so we're looking at 2009, 2010. And I had joined the business full time in 2004. I quit-I after school, I got a small job working in the engineering field. Basically as I was like a good Indian kid, I got my degree and I ended up working for a small consulting firm for a few years, helping on the side with the business. Then in 2004, I made the decision to quit my job and join the family business full time. So I was helping out throughout that time, part time, making deliveries, you know, helping wherever I could. Then in 2004, I decided it's time for me to take this to the next level with my 00:17:00parents, with my dad, mainly. At that time, my dad had been working full time in the business. My mom was doing it part time because she was kind of keeping the steady job with the steady income and the benefits to allow us this little adventure that we were doing. And in 2004, when I joined full time, my goal was like, "Okay, I got to figure out another strategy. How do I grow this business, you know, with where we are today?" Because we were just, you know, it was word of mouth that was helping us. And so I was getting- we were getting calls every day from new grocery stores opening up about, "Hey, we want to carry your kulfi, how do we do it?" And then we go visit them, get them set up and then go, start delivering. So we're really growing pretty nicely. And the only question is like, "Can we do this?" You know, I think my dad thought this is just going to be like a local retiree business that I can just do until it's time for me to retire. My ambitions are a little bigger. I'm like, "If our own people can enjoy the kulfi like this and say such great things about it, why can't everybody 00:18:00else?" You know and at that time, I saw, like, gelato was becoming a thing. And I'm like, you know, Indian ice cream. Italian ice cream? Really like, what's the difference? Like, its people are into, you know, I think, you know, the American palate is evolving, and people are interested in international cuisines and globally inspired flavors, I think there's a market for kulfi. We just have to create it. We just have to figure out the right messaging, how to do it. And that's kind of what my ambition and goal was. So 2010, we decided, let's try this out. You know, let's see if there's a way we can break through. So the thinking we had was we need to go to a trade show. So we scrounge up some money and we kind of rebranded our packaging a little bit, make it look a little bit more hip and happening at the time and we went to a trade show in 2011. And those trade shows, we just kind of set up a little booth. You know, first one we 00:19:00went to was in California and it was called Expo West. We sat in the basement, as all the newbies do, you know, in the corner somewhere with our little booth, waiting for people to walk by. And people did, you know, we handed out free kulfi while we were there. We made little snack size kulfis, like little, tiny, you know, a couple of bite sized, you know, bars. And people were really liking it. Like we were finding out that visitors to our booth were getting sent down to our booth, you know, from above, after trying our product, telling other people that "You've got to try this thing. It's really, really good. This is really amazing." So we were getting a lot of buzz, you know, for being such a small, first timers. And on the last day of the show, we ran into this person that turned out to be the buyer for Costco, and they were really blown away with our product. They were the grocery buyer, not the frozen buyer, but they said they knew very well the frozen buyer and that they would be very interested in 00:20:00this because they might be actually looking for something like this. So we said, that's great. Sounds cool. I mean, a lot of people are making promises and big claims. So we didn't think much of it at the time. But when we got back home, we got the email from the Costco buyer and said, "Hey, we heard some good things about you. Would you mind sending us some samples?" We sent them some samples. They responded back, "Hey, we got the samples. Would you, you and your father like to come meet with us? We'd like to meet with you in our offices." So we're like, "Okay, sure, let's do that." So Dad and I took a couple of days off. And my brother had moved to California at the time, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to maybe go visit him and spend a day or two there and then have this meeting. So we sat down at the meeting with the Costco buyer. It was a large table. Me and my dad on one end, like six or seven people on the other end, with the buyer leading the meeting. And basically told us, "We're sold. We love this product. This is like really awesome. We had no idea this is how good 00:21:00kulfi could be. We had tried some other kulfi products that we thought might be good, but nothing measured up to what you guys had, and we would love to do business with you. How do we do it?" And then me and my dad looked at each other like, and then looked back at that guy. And I'm like, "I have no idea. I mean, you tell us. You're Costco." How do we? You tell us what to do. We we're just a tiny little operation in Dallas. So back and forth, some conversation. We agreed upon, you know, a format. And so, when we got back to Dallas, we started working on that and we decided we're going to make them a 12-pack product and that they would just start with a couple of locations and see how it goes. And that's when things just took off. So our first delivery was in 2012. September. So almost ten years to the date, let's say, because our first purchase order was like after Labor Day, after summer, you know, right when the fall season is kicking in, they're wanting us to launch an ice cream brand in Costco. So we're like, 00:22:00"Whatever, okay, fine". So we send two pallets out, and I think the product lands in California. And two pallets is basically roughly a thousand of these party boxes, like these 12 pack boxes with three flavors in them. They receive the product. We feel like it got on the shelf on a Friday. I get a call on Saturday and they're asking us how many more pallets do we have? And I said- I got nervous. I said, "What happened? Did everything melt? Did the shipment not make it?" They're like, "No, no, no. We're almost out of product." I'm like, "How is that possible?" They're like, "I don't know. It's just selling, like, crazy off the shelf and we need as many more as you can make. So how many more can you make?" I said, "I have no idea. I won't be able to know until like Monday." He goes, "Let me know ASAP. Whatever you can make in terms of pallets, let me know that number and then we'll buy it. So just let me know monthly what you can provide. We will buy it." I'm like, "Uh, okay. All right." So that's 00:23:00when I call my dad. I'm like, "Dad, they almost sold out of kulfi." And he's like, "Costco?" I was like, "Costco is almost sold out." He goes, "How is that...?" I go, "I have no idea." But apparently, they put it in these two locations in California, Fremont and Sunnyvale. Those buildings, very Indian heavy. And so I guess Indians and their love of a deal, members loving Costco, at the same time see kulfi on the shelf and think, "Oh my God, kulfi at Costco? I'm buying it." And people were buying multiple boxes without even trying the product. But they came back for it because they tried it and they liked it and they kept getting more. And word just spread. And so here we go. And so I knew at that point, our trajectory had changed. Whatever we were really kind of hoping for to happen, happened. That was an inflection point for us in our business and what we thought this product could be for the larger American 00:24:00audience, that this could be a crossover product because then they added a third location after that. That third location was in Danville, which is a largely Caucasian neighborhood, and it worked there, too. The sales were, sales numbers were high there, too, and we had yet to do any product demonstrations. In fact, we were scheduled to go that following week- from that first delivery to do product sampling. They didn't have enough product on the shelf for us to do sampling from. So we had to wait like two months before we had enough stability in the whole operation for us to get over there. So that, that's kind of what took us to the next level. So from 20012 onwards, we've been growing in Costco and only in Costco because that's all our capacity allowed us to do. Our little, tiny plant, which now went from 2500 square feet to 5000 square feet, we took the adjacent- Very soon after our Costco order, we took the second suite over 00:25:00that was available to us and were able to kind of double our size. But even with that, it was very challenging to meet the demand we were getting from Costco. So that's when we decided we needed to get a larger plant to build this brand so we could solicit our product to other retailers. So that's what precipitated us now in 2020, operating out of our new plant, which is now 30,000 square feet, full-fledged manufacturing facility, to be able to make kulfis and other ice cream pops and other ice cream products. And that's where we are today.

|00:25:29| Brody So you mentioned that early on, like even in the eighties and then later on in the nineties that you were- that your dad was taking the product to grocery stores. Were those mostly Asian grocery stores at that time? Are you still- how did you build those relationships? How did your dad build those relationships at that time? And now, as you've grown and are more 00:26:00mainstream, are you still in Asian grocery stores and how do you maintain relationships with these, as you grow and grow and grow?

|00:26:01| Singh So, yeah, we continue to sell in the Indian grocery stores, that's our legacy. And while we're able to and it makes sense for us to, we will continue to do so because that's- that community is what gave us our opportunity and our chance. And they are still a large part of the market. You know, Indian consumers are very powerful consumers. Or I would say the South Asian consumers are very powerful and consumer. So we continue that. And my dad would simply just go to the stores like, you know, and a lot of times I at a certain point, the calls came to us. We didn't have to. And then as some of these stores grew in size, they started opening up multiple locations. So as you know now today there are two or three brand of Indian or South Asian grocer that have multiple locations throughout DFW and they have a significant footprint. There are more 00:27:00of them now combined than there are of the independents. And so now they have you know, you've got three or four chains of Indian grocers that are the bulk of the market, and the rest are just kind of independents that have a small neighborhood grocery and eatery attached to it. That is how they kind of stay in business to compete is having their own kind of little mini restaurant, takeout slash grocery store. That's how, you know, we grew back then was just through word of mouth, through our own outreach. And then we were able to do Houston and Austin and San Antonio. So there's still room for growth even in this market for us. And then as we got into the mainstream, we're now, you know, trying to still build our brand because Costco is still a large part of our business, but we've got Whole Foods, H-E-B, and we're hoping these can help us kind of stairstep our way into the larger retail market so that kulfi can finally become a mainstream 00:28:00product. And the beauty of the two markets is we can do a lot of testing of things in the smaller, in the South Asian market where we have a loyal following. So new flavors, new ideas, we could probably test them in those markets, see how they respond. And then that could be something then that could potentially parlay into the larger mainstream. Our packaging is different. So if you look at our packaging in the South Asian grocery market, it looks a little different in terms of color themes than what we sell in the more mainstream grocers, more American focused grocers. And that's just due to kind of how both of those audiences resonate with packaging, right? It's not the same. So it's a little nuance there. And so that that is something where we recognize that we're having to kind of manage that as well in the branding side. And that can be tricky. But at some point, I think they will converge in the future where it 00:29:00really doesn't matter. You can use the same branding for both, and they will resonate in the same way.

|00:28:55| Brody What are the differences?

|00:28:57| Singh Well, what we did is our branding in the Indian stores and Pakistani stores were more- it was very Indian looking in terms of like the design, a lot of like those kind of paisley patterns and things of that nature. And it was kind of a cream-colored focus, like the base color was a cream with like these different greens and reds and oranges that, you know, kind of symbolize the color of the flavors. Then our we did kind of a whole packaging refresh for the mainstream market, and our look now is kind of got this kind of very elegant, rich, dark background, almost black. It's a very dark gray and it's got a little bit of a paisley design in the back. And then it still has some of these bright colors to distinguish the flavors and have that contrast with the black background to give it a more premium look, because we're trying to compete now with your major premium brands. And so we needed something that stuck out but also looked premium. But that I don't think would have worked in 00:30:00the Indian grocery stores because that's too much of a shock to the system. We went from this kind of cream-colored background to now this dark and bold background, and I don't know if people would have recognized us as the same brand. So what we did is we took the same design elements of the more bolder, darker theme, but used the same cream-colored background instead of the dark colored background but kept the same elements. So that's the difference now. It's the same look. It's just a different color theme, and that's kind of how we're bridging that gap. And then over time, we'll probably have a consistent branding across all channels.

|00:30:33| Brody That's really interesting. You mentioned the brand and you know, we've been talking about the packaging. In a nutshell, how would you describe your brand?

|00:30:44| Singh Unique. We're trying to open up a new category of frozen dessert. Kulfi is a distinct category of frozen dairy dessert. It is not ice 00:31:00cream. We're having to use the ice cream metaphor to describe it for the larger public, because that's the only analogous product that we can describe it as. But it's not ice cream. It's not whipped. It's not churned. It doesn't contain gums or eggs or stabilizers, which by definition is what ice cream is, is something that's made from a mix. It's not entirely milk, but this is essentially milk. Yes, it's half and half, which is a milk and cream blend. But why do we use half and half and not like whole milk? Well, this goes back to kulfi back in India and South Asia, that milk is water buffalo milk. Most milk that's consumed in that part of the world, that region is from water buffalo, not cows, as you would define them here, like Holstein cows or Jersey or 00:32:00Guernsey cows. But in fact, water buffalo well, water buffalo milk has a natural butterfat content of 8%. So it's 8% butter cream. And, then the rest of it is, you know, the milk solids and non-solids and water and whatever. Well, half and half milk has a natural, not natural, but a half and half has a measured content butterfat of 10%. So that's much more aligned with water buffalo milk consistency. So that's why we use half and half. My mom used half and half because it had that same richness and feel of water buffalo milk. And that was, you know, one of the big reasons why our product was so loved because of that richness and took no shortcuts. You can mimic that with like a milk and cream and condensed milk mixture, but then that adds a ton more calories to the final product per bar than the way we make it. And the way we make it is how it is 00:33:00always made. We want to stay true to the artisan tradition of how that product is actually made. And we didn't want to, we didn't want to shy away from that original process because that's what our brand is about. It's unique, but it's also authentic and original.

|00:33:13| Brody Thank you. So, do you see your business as being a "mom and pop" type business or with all this growth and expansion, is it something different now?

|00:33:26| Singh I think we're becoming something different. I would still say we're kind of "mom and pop." And if you look at our day-to-day operations and how we interact with each other, yeah, we're a "mom and pop," but the ambition is to not be. The operation- the ambition is to be, you know, corporate and structured and organized and efficient. And we're working towards that. But it's still very much still feels "mom and pop" because my "mom and pop" are in the business.

|00:33:52| Brody Of course. Well, that makes sense then. Can you walk me through some of the- we've kind of covered some of this already, but some of the nuts and bolts of a business like yours? First of all, the name, you know, coming up with the name, the branding and all of that. And then, of course, the businessy side of it, the sourcing and permits and construction and things like that.

|00:34:16| Singh Sure. So the name came from a variation or kind of alteration in my mother's maiden name of Kaur. So in Punjabi culture, most Punjabis are Sikh of religion, religious faith, and as people who know Sikhs know that they all carry the surname "Singh." All the males have "Singh," all the females carry "Kaur." And "Singh" means "lion." "Kaur" actually means "Crown Prince." Most people say it means "princess" but that's a misnomer. It's actually "Crown Prince." And the concept of that was that women should have their own name, they 00:35:00shouldn't have to carry the man's name, that that they are their own sovereign being. And so "Kaur" would be their name. And that, you know, recognizes the strength and empowerment of women and men equally. So, "Kaur" I thought would be kind of a nice like, I don't know, I think it just kind of came we were in the car one day just thinking up names and I was thinking, how can we use "Kaur" in the name? Because I felt like a female name was a better name for a brand or a food company just because it just harkens and this is my mother's recipe, so I wanted to kind of pay tribute to that. So we kind of came up with "Kaurina" like we added the "ina" to it and it just sounded nice. It rolled off the tongue easy. It had a nice, comfortable, cozy sound to it, and everybody kind of seemed to like it. So we said, okay, we'll call it "Kaurina's." You know, like it makes sense. And it's also very easy to see and read and it sounds very universal. It 00:36:00kind of crosses cultural boundaries, so to speak. I mean, everybody has some kind of an "ina" name in their culture, right? You've got, in Spanish, there is "Karina." You could easily see somebody of non-Indian culture being called Karina. I think we have a Karina that works for us. I'm not sure, but. Yeah, but yeah. So that just made sense. And that's how we kind of stuck with that name. And then the business parts. So let's see, what was next?

|00:36:25| Brody Your day to day, how do you run it? Like the sourcing, you mentioned before buying milk at Kroger back in the day by the crate. Today, how do you deal with your milk needs, for example?

|00:36:36| Singh So yeah, we've learned a lot over the years, not much, but some things we do better than we used to do. We, you know, now being a commercial operation, we source our milk from the dairy co-op. So the local dairy co-op, 00:37:00Hiland Dairies, used to be Borden and used to be Schepps. You know, these different companies that supply milk to all the grocery stores, they process that milk at a, in a kind of a processing facility. So they'll get all the milk from the dairy farmers, raw milk. They'll take that milk, they'll separate out the cream from the skim and then reconstitute it back into the various types of milk, like your half and half your heavy cream, your 2%, your 1%, your skim. So we buy our half and half from those dairy processors. They send it to us in large totes, about 250-gallon totes or 230-gallon totes. It's basically a big box, plastic box on a collapsible box on a pallet in a with a plastic, heavy duty plastic liner. And then that milk is in this big liner bag, basically. And then then that's what we pump out into our large vat, which would be akin to my mother's little stockpot that she used to make the kulfi from. And we once we 00:38:00fill up the vat, we turn on the heat, turn on the mixers, and basically do the same thing my mother used to do with her hands. But now with machines on the, in the large vat and we slow cook that milk. And you know, as per regulations, we have to pasteurize. So we do a pasteurization process and follow all the regulatory guidelines, namely dictated by the State Health. Department. And then, from there, you know, we mix the product, pour it into molds. These molds are not individual molds like we used to do back at home. This is a larger kind of operation now where the molds are multiple cavities in one mold. So, you know, right now I think we have like 18, 24 cavities per mold and we have so many hundreds of molds and then they go- are fed into a pop freezing machine, as I call it, in simpler terms. People would call it a brine tank, basically, but this is a little bit more sophisticated than that, but it is the same concept. 00:39:00So you put place the mold into the brine tank and then the molds are indexed, pushing forward every so often as a new mold comes in. And while it makes its way down to the end of the brine tank in a line, it's frozen by the end. It usually takes about 10 minutes to freeze ten, ten or twelve minutes. And then the frozen molds are pops are extracted from the mold and then run through a flow wrapping machine to package it in the plastic wrap. And then that is then boxed up, run through a cartoning machine to box it up and then case packed, palletized, and wrapped up and ready to go for shipment. And that's how we how we kind of manufacture the product today. Very standard in terms of the industry goes like any other popsicle would be made the same way. I'm sure anybody could find it on YouTube. How to make popsicles. That's how we do it. And that's basically yeah, the short of it.

|00:39:53| Brody You mentioned that you got a new space, a much larger space in 2020. In each of these places, are you owning or renting the spaces.

|00:40:02| Singh We currently rent, the space that we're in, we tried to find a place to own, but it was a little bit out of budget for us to purchase, something to buy and then spend the money to kind of refurbish it. So it was much easier for us to get a long term leased space that was kind of ready for us to build out right away without having to do any extra work to it to get it ready to build out. We did look for a few years, so we just weren't successful finding the right spot, the right place, right location. And this place came up and everything about it made sense. It was very close to home. It was ready, already built out. The landlord is used to working with food companies and willing to work with food companies, knowing that we would be building in a lot of machinery and operations there. So it just worked out for us that way. And so that's kind of what we do. Our equipment we've purchased, it is ours with the 00:41:00help of a small business loan, and that's kind of how we're set up in our factory.

|00:41:00| Brody What about advertising? Initially, I know it was word of mouth, and sort of your dad's hustling and getting the product into the small Asian grocery stores. Now that you've expanded so much and are in places where people may never have even heard of kulfi like Whole Foods or Costco. How are you going about advertising and introducing the product to customers?

|00:41:27| Singh I think that's where the Internet has been really revolutionary for small businesses. We use digital advertising now to promote our product online through Instagram, Facebook, other digital marketing means, our own social media platform and feeds. I think it's been very helpful for us getting the word out. We also at these stores, when the opportunity presents itself and 00:42:00we're allowed to, we demo the product. We'll go in store, you know, cut up samples and have people try it. I mean, I do demos myself, my employees help. And it's a challenge at this rate because we're, you know, there's you need for building a consumer-packaged goods brand, CPG brand, you need a lot of money in cash to be able to promote and grow the brand. So whenever we have that opportunity, we can, we do spend money and time on that. And that's how we continue to build and grow. But we obviously need to do a lot more of it to build it beyond where we are today. But that's basically what we're starting to do now and just kind of put down an online presence and develop that social media presence so that we can kind of amplify that word of mouth through social media.

|00:42:42| Brody Earlier, you used the phrase crossing cultural boundaries. Given that kulfi is maybe, you know, like I just said, something that many 00:43:00customers, many American customers have never even heard of, do you feel like you need to introduce it as an Indian product, an Indian traditional dessert or in some other way?

|00:43:12| Singh That's been a challenging thing for us to figure out. What's the balance? In one end, we want to introduce it as something that's, you know, from our cultural heritage that we're sharing with you a piece of cuisine. And then secondly, you know, we also wanted to resonate with the average everyday American as a weekly purchase that they can enjoy. So the other aspect is we're trying to blend the unique cultural position it holds with the healthier aspects of the product's nutrition. So. |Cough| What we're trying to figure out is 00:44:00what's that perfect messaging blend where we can have both messaging resonate and which audience would resonate more. Because you've got people who will buy it because it's kulfi. You also have people that would buy it that maybe wouldn't buy it because it's kulfi, but because it's healthier. So we're trying to figure out how to do both and do it well and know how to speak to those audiences. And I think that's where the social media part can really come in, because you can get really granular about your audience and who is seeing your ad and who is seeing the feed and what they're relating to. So you can put different types of ads up, and so one ad can focus on the health aspect of it. You know, for the fit, healthy lifestyle, this is what you want. 80 calories, snack size bar, it's really great. And it's got these really cool flavors and they don't maybe care so much that it's kulfi. It's just good and it's healthier for me. Then there's the other portion of the market where they are looking for 00:45:00something unique and different and culturally specific. So there are those folks that are looking for "I want to try an authentic kulfi. I want to know what that tastes like. What is that?" So we have ads for that. And then you just kind of track and maybe see which ones resonate more and then continue to do more of the ones that resonate more. But we haven't built up enough data to know that yet, and we're just kind of getting started with that because when Costco came online, we didn't have to do any advertising. It just sold itself and continues to sell itself because of the format of that type of retailer. People buy in bulk; people buy it, and the sales speak for themselves. We haven't had to really do any marketing for it, but now that we're in Whole Foods, H-E-B, this is the, this is what we're going through today. Like we're, we're learning this part of marketing and advertising now and how to navigate that. So hopefully we'll see which one ends up, you know, being more or less than the other and 00:46:00then focus on that.

|00:45:53| Brody What have been some of the biggest challenges moving into the mainstream?

|00:45:58| Singh Exactly that. I mean, read, trying to figure out how to resonate with the consumer. There have been logistical challenges, too. I mean, like, you know, we're in the store, we're like in Whole Foods or whatever. And for instance, some challenges might be the distributors, not- we're a new brand, we're a young brand, a small brand. So sometimes our orders don't get delivered or they don't purchase order in a quick enough time to where we have "out of stocks" and then that hurts our weekly sales because now there's no product on the shelf. So trying to kind of become a known entity in a distribution network that has hundreds of thousands of companies and SKUs and products to distribute, it's, we're encountering this challenge now. So the business end of it, it continues to have a challenge, and this is nothing unique to us. This is any young brand, an emerging brand that's trying to build their name goes through, but we're finally learning all of these things and figuring out how to navigate 00:47:00it and how to kind of tweak it and make it improve it. So that's been some challenge for us. And then of course, recognition on the shelf, getting, you know, how do we get that person to see the packaging and resonate with it? So we're going to be looking at, you know, the packaging and branding that we have today. Is that effective in terms of selling people right off the shelf? How do we, how are we standing out from the other brands or not? So those are some now upcoming challenges we are encountering now and into the future that we're going to have to start figuring out how to tweak and manipulate and change in accordance with how we feel. Our product wants to be recognized and seen to improve sales.

|00:47:39| Brody That's really interesting. How about flavors? You mentioned that, you know, you could try out some different flavors in the smaller markets and then maybe see if they will fly in the larger markets. What are the 00:48:00bestsellers? What are the flavors that you offer?

|00:47:55| Singh By far, our best sellers have always been, and these are kind of our classic flavors is the pistachio almond, the mango and the malai. Malai is like the original kulfi flavor infused with cardamom spice. And so that's your basic kulfi flavor. That's the one that my mom used to make at home all the time. Sometimes she would add in the pistachios and the almonds, but most of the time it was malai kulfi. And so those three flavors tend to be still our by far our favorites. And we make vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, which are amazing, in my opinion. They're not as well-known because people just think of them as boring flavors. But when you blend fresh strawberry puree with a caramelized kulfi mix, it's something else. Our chocolate, we actually cook the fresh cocoa into the milk. So it's basically hot chocolate on a stick, but frozen. And our 00:49:00vanilla actually is unique because we use Mexican vanilla. We don't use the typical Madagascar vanilla, whatever. We're actually trying to kind of take a little flavor of Texas and the South and add it to our Indian kulfi and make this kind of Mexican vanilla kulfi. And it's really cool and unique as well, where it has a nice, lovely flavor to it. So those are the six main flavors that we make. We will probably bring occasional seasonal flavors in like the pumpkin spices and the peppermint and, you know, something different and unique, which we will continue to do. We're trying to establish ourselves with these classic flavors. My vision for the brand is I don't want to be a trend or something kitschy where we just capture the next trend, and that's what we do. I want our product to be classic, like a Haagen-Dazs. It's always there and it's always reliable. You know what you're getting when you try it, and you don't ever have to worry about changing that flavor because it's that comfort food that you always go back to time and time again. You may try some of these new things that 00:50:00come out into the market, but you'll tire for them over time, right? "Okay. I had enough of that and that's good. I'm going to go back to my usual." We want to be the usual for people when it comes to our brand and our category, kulfi. That it's a go to comfort that everybody will have on a weekly basis, maybe more than once a week, and enjoy our product because it's the classic flavors that they always come to love and grew up with.

|00:50:18| Brody Who do you see as your main competition?

|00:50:21| Singh That's a good question. I, you know, we sit in such a unique space. I mean, I would just say we compete with all the other premium brands. So anybody that's considering themselves a premium, high quality ice cream brand would be our competition. But then there's all sorts of other categories of competition too, like price point and, you know, other, you know, flavors, things of that nature. So, you know, our competitors are all the other ice cream brands, but then want to get more granular, I would say more premium ice cream 00:51:00brands, but there are other kulfi products out there. But I feel like we stand alone as a brand because that's all we do. A lot of these other kulfi brands, they make other products like the brands that make them, they make a whole slew of other SKUs and products that they sell. And so kulfi is not a focus and kulfi is not a primary driver of their revenue. So I don't feel they're our competitors because when you try us side by side, you can see immediately, which is a little more superior in terms of its quality and taste. So I don't look at them as competitors, but you know, there are like indirectly a lot of that competition in the ice cream category.

|00:51:38| Brody Sure. It seems it's interesting because you are, you know, by 00:52:00definition, an Asian, you know, you're serving an Asian dessert. You yourself are of Asian descent. And you're, you know, in your parents came from India. But the way that this business and what you're doing is uniquely American, right? You're serving it in a completely different way than it was served in India or that it is served in India. Yet you're using, you know, an authentic, quote unquote, authentic recipe. How I mean, what are your reflections or thoughts around just all of that, you know, just sort of the special place that your business and your family are in?

|00:52:33| Singh Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I feel like, you know, everything we're doing is much is a bit that I think is the definition of "American" as you take you take something from your mother culture, and you incorporate it into the American experience. Everything in America came from 00:53:00somewhere else, you know, whether that be soul food with its African roots, whether it be Mexican, Chinese food, which is uniquely American. Nothing like- you couldn't eat anything like that in China or Mexico. Yet, it's called Mexican food. It's called Chinese food, but it's uniquely Chinese American and Mexican American. And so all of these other cultures that came before me and us did the same thing. And I think we're doing the same thing with our Indian cuisine. We're making it uniquely American in how we present it, how we handle it and how we manipulate it and how we serve it to where it's different now than what that product would be in India or South Asia or other countries in South Asia. So that's what I find to be really cool that we're putting our own twist on it, that it is still uniquely American because it's kulfi, you know, and it's not 00:54:00the kulfi of India. It uses that recipe. It's got that authentic taste and flavor. But like you said, it's being packaged in a more American way where people in America can, you know, resonate with it and relate to it. So it's that bridging of the back. It's a constant redefinition of what "American" means. Right?

|00:54:12| Brody What, to you, what does it mean to be American?

|00:54:16| Singh I think what it means to be American is open minded, open to new ideas, adventurous, you know, be a trailblazer. You know, that's what America is defined as doing. We've taken all the institutions of the old world and turned them upside down and created this crazy experiment, a multicultural experiment that has so far largely been successful despite what we might be seeing out there in the media these days. I still think we're largely a very cohesive community of people, considering how disparate we are in terms of where 00:55:00we've all come from. We're very much a successful experiment to show that people from many different walks of life and cultures and countries can live together in harmony. And largely, you know, we do. You know, I've got neighbors from all over the world, and we all love each other and hang out with each other and get along just fine and are all interested and excited about each other's origins and love to learn and learn about them. I- that's my experience has been luckily I haven't had to deal with much overt racism in my life and I'm thankful for that because I know a lot of people have, but luckily, I haven't had to do that. I've encountered a lot of good people from all walks of life and creeds that have influenced who I am today.

|00:55:42| Brody That's really nice. In a lot of these conversations that I'm having, people are reflecting about the role that food can play in transmitting 00:56:00culture. What are your thoughts around that, both from your experience running the business and just from living as a person with an immigrant background in the United States?

|00:56:05| Singh We all have to eat, and food is the biggest uniter. There is, I feel, of all things to bring people together, nothing brings people together like food. I mean, the biggest American holiday is Thanksgiving is not associated with religion, is not associated with any culture. It is uniquely American. And every Thanksgiving is all kinds of food, and it lasts more than one day. So that should tell us how big we are when it comes to food in America and even racists will eat tacos. There's no racist out there that can avoid the allure of the street taco or the enchanting aroma of butter chicken. I'm sorry. Even those folks who hate other people, but they don't hate our food. So that 00:57:00tells you how powerful food is in terms of uniting people.

|00:56:59| Brody That's really funny. If you- when you look back over your family's experience, what do you think are some of the lessons that that you've learned and the legacy that you want to transmit?

|00:57:16| Singh You know, continue to be adventurous, explore- is what I've learned is the more open minded you are, the more willing you are to take criticism and feedback to heart, the easier it will be for you to be more and more successful each time around. Like I think. And also never, never take no as an answer. Like, you have to persevere. Like, I don't know how many times in our business life we've been told that "Really, you're going to make kulfi, like you do that full time? Is that? What's your other what your real job?" You know, and 00:58:00I say, "No, this is what I do. That's what I'm doing full time?" Like, "Really, you can make a living doing this? You sure you can?" Like, I know that my dad ran into it. He might tell you in another interview, but he, you know, he was challenged whether or not this could be a sustainable business for his family. And here we are supporting two families with it, you know, and more because we've got employees as well. So, you know, it can be done. It's just about perseverance, I think, when it comes to an entrepreneurial endeavor and operating a business. And if you really believe in it, you truly, truly believe in it, then you just don't take no for an answer. You find ways to make it work. You keep persevering. You don't say no. It's really, that's really the key. I think, you know, you can- it's not really about intelligence and smarts and all that that helps. But the real trick is just never giving up and sticking with sticking to your guns and making sure that you realize the dream that you always had and don't never give up on it.

|00:58:50| Brody How many people do you employ right now?

|00:58:52| Singh Right now we have about roughly 25, 30 employees, give or take, and hoping, you know, as business grows, we can employ more as needed. But that's where we are right now in Dallas.

|00:59:06| Brody In the last few years, we've faced some challenges. You know, obviously, COVID has affected the whole world. But we before that, we had the tornadoes and the ice storm. Were your operations impacted by tornado ice storm or COVID?

|00:59:22| Singh I guess luckily; we were in a bright spot in terms of where we were located. We did not endure any real major shutdowns due to the weather and COVID actually helped our business. I know a lot of people, you know, suffered and went through a lot and it's unfortunate, but because we were labeled an essential business, we were able to stay open. And because most of our business was sold to grocery stores, which are also essential businesses that helped us, 01:00:00we had to maintain supply in stock for these customers. And so we were able to keep our doors open and continue business. So we didn't get hurt as bad as some of maybe some of these other unfortunate businesses like restaurants and other ones that that weren't considered essential and then had to shut their doors due to mandates. And so thankfully, that did not occur for us. And we were able to keep going and we managed the COVID pandemic, I think pretty well. Any time somebody showed symptoms, they were, you know, told they can go home. And then we did pay them for the time off that they needed to recover. And so we followed that kind of policy and made sure that we kept all of our employees healthy regularly, kind of informed them about data and information that was coming through, down through government bodies and through the news about what we knew about it, so that they stayed safe and just constantly stayed in touch with them about how to stay safe and be safe from this until vaccines were available. And 01:01:00then when vaccines were available, you know, my younger brother, he's a physician, so we got him on the Zoom and had him do a presentation on the vaccines. So everybody kind of felt comfortable and knew what was going on because there was also a lot of misinformation going on about vaccines. And being that are a lot of our production employees specifically were non-English speaking and from, you know South American countries mostly, there was a lot of things in their communities that was not entirely being provided effectively or accurately. And so we wanted to make sure they got the information properly, too. And my brother happens to be fluent in Spanish, growing up here in Texas and minoring in it. So he was able to speak to them, you know, in Spanish and allay any concerns that they have about it. So I think we handled it pretty well. We only had maybe three or four that we know of that had COVID and that needed to stay back and stay home. And so and then when the vaccines came out, 01:02:00we really strongly encouraged everybody to take them. We didn't mandate it, but we just let them know that this is helpful, and this will help you and your family. And so we feel that most of the people did, in fact, you know, do take the vaccines when they were available. And so, did what we could to keep everybody healthy and safe. And now we're kind of back to more of a normal operational situation where it's not much of an issue anymore.

|01:02:18| Brody That's good. Early on in our conversation, you mentioned that when your mom would make it for parties, the kulfi, that it really reminded people who are immigrants here from India of their youth and that that nostalgia factor that you mentioned, do you have any other stories that sort of illustrate that feeling or the way the taps into the immigrant customers?

|01:02:51| Singh Sure. There was one time where my mom was going to have a little get together at the house. And one of our family friends asked if my mother was going to make kulfi for that get together like ahead. They called like a week ahead and my mom's like, "Well, I didn't plan to this time." She said, "No, you need to make it. So we have family visiting from out of town. I want them to try this and I'm going to bring them over to your house. I got them to, like, extend their trip another day so they could come to your house to try this." So my mom's like, "Oh, you know, it's a lot of work. I don't know if I want to do it this time." She's like, just like, "No, you have to. I've been telling him, been like talking this stuff up, you know, all week. So you have to make it." Excuse me. So I thought I had to sneeze. So anyway. Saturday rolls around. This family shows up. They had their whole, like, relatives with them, like three or four other people. And he's like, "You made the kulfi, right?" And my mom's like, "Oh, crap, I forgot." And his jaw just dropped. But mom's like, 01:04:00"I'm just kidding. I made it. Don't worry." So they show up, and it did not disappoint. These folks were just like, you know, "You told us to book or like to extend our trip. It was like, cost us a little extra money to do that, but this was worth it. Like, wow. It lived up to the hype. It did not disappoint." They were blown away by it. They loved it. And it was really cool to see, you know, that to see them satisfied that way that they were able to taste it and have that same experience and that memory. So it was legit. Like, you know, we were thinking at the beginning, like a lot of flattery, people just being nice. But no, there was it was genuine. And we're not we're not really brilliant marketing people or anything like that. So obviously this product sells itself. When people try it, they like it. And the word of mouth has really been a big driver of our, I would say, our brand's success. And now we're trying to, you 01:05:00know, tell the family story more, you know, how we got started, everything. Because I also think a lot of people resonate with that immigrant story so many of us experience and share. And I think that also adds to the flavor of the product, the brand.

|01:05:10| Brody That's great. Just as a last question, is there anything that I haven't asked you today that you'd like to add to this interview?

|01:05:22| Singh I can't think of anything else. I think it's been pretty extensive and thorough. Yeah, I guess we're this is going to be a steppingstone for us. We'll be working on other products besides just kulfi that take the same idea of introducing our cuisine in a new and fresh way. So stay tuned. Coming soon.

|01:05:44| Brody I can't wait. Thank you so much for your time today. I've really learned a lot and appreciate having your voice as part of this story.

|01:05:52| Singh Well, thanks for having us, Betsy. It's such a great thing that you're doing. And we're really honored to be a part of it.

|01:05:57| Brody Thank you.