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My grandfather, Lakshmishankar Pathak, was born in 1925 in the Indian state of Gujurat. His fam-
ily were poor farmers scratching a living as best they could. When he was only ten years old his father
died. At a loss as how to carry on his elder brother, now the man of the family, decided they should take
advantage of the British Governments incentives and emigrate to East Africa. In Kenya they found a large
population of Indian immigrants who craved the tastes of home. So, displaying an entrepreneurial spirit
that we all seem to have inherited they opened a shop selling Indian sweets. The sweets were good and
the queues were long.
Coming to Britain
My grandfather, who people called LG, grew up and worked in the business. And he married and had
children. But as Kenya moved towards independence things were changing. So in 1956 LG and his wife,
my grandmother, set sail for Britain. He landed in the country in the
depths of a bitter winter in November 1956. The journey had used up
almost all of the money he had saved or borrowed. All he had left was
fve pounds. Five pounds and a determination to build a life for his
family in this freezing new home.
The next bit of my grandfathers story I fnd almost impossible to
believe. Somehow, even though he spoke little English, and only had
a letter of character reference from a Kenyan bank as recommenda-
tion, he persuaded a London bank manager to lend him the money
to rent a house in Kentish Town. But getting a job was much, much
harder. After weeks of pounding the streets all he was offered was
one cleaning the sewers. At this point my Grandmother, Shanta, took centre stage. She sold some jewel-
lery, bought a set of battered pots and pans and starting making sweets and snacks on the family stove
in the tiny kitchen. The sweets were as good as ever. And soon the queues were just as long as they had
been in Kenya.
The Pataks Story
When I look back to where my Grandfather
started and compare that to where we are
now I am amazed. And proud. Very, very
proud. Maybe when youve had the chance
to discover how far weve come in how short
a time youll understand why Pataks isnt
just a company to me and my family.
Anjali Pathak
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The whole family helped
Everyone in the family was expected to help. Including my dad who
tells me that him and his brother used to make deliveries of parcels of
samosas and jellabies all over London . Theyd travel by Tube because,
back then, if you were under 11 travel was free. But because their
English wasnt, as yet, much good theyd carry two scraps of paper to
show people. One had the address they were delivering to, the other
had their home address. (Fortunately, our distribution systems moved
on a bit since then).
Within a couple of years the family was doing so well that they
switched operations to a small shop behind Euston Station at 134
Drummond Street. While the business was getting bigger our name got
smaller. My grandfather decided to drop the h from the name of the
business as it was always being mispronounced. That, incidentally, is
why I am Anjali Pathak, but the company is called Pataks.
A taste of India
Drummond Street may well have started out as an Indian goods and grocery store but soon it grew into
a kind of community centre for Indians a long way from home. And the more people that came in, the
more they wanted goods shipped in from the subcontinent. Thats how my grandfather ended up import-
ing stuff into Britain that had never been seen here before. There were vegetables, spices and herbs.
And he prided himself on always sourcing the best quality of goods that he could fnd. For example its a
family legend that he was the frst person to airfreight vegetables into the country. My dad remembers
this particularly as he had to slog out to the airport for 4.a.m. to meet incoming fights and get the pro-
duce offoaded, processed through customs and into the shop by the time it opened at 7a.m.
The way that my dad tells the story it was a mistake with a shipment of vegetables that fuelled the next
stage in the growth of the family business. What happened was that one time when an order came in
there was way too much stock for them to sell through the shop. Not wanting to waste the vegetables
that would otherwise go off they decided to try and pickle them. So they did. And it proved a runaway
success.
Solving a problem
Maybe it was the success with the pickles that lead to what
happened next. My grandfather created a curry paste mix. The
problem he was recognising was that in Britain people would
keep opened jars of spices hanging round in their cupboards
often for years at a time. So if they tried to use these spices
to make a curry the taste would suffer from the fact that the
spices favour profle would have long since deteriorated. My
Grandads stroke of genius was to create the right spice blend
for a particular curry, then mix it with oil. As its contact with
air that makes the spices go off, the oil meant that the glorious
favours of the freshly ground spices would last far, far longer.
As a way of bringing the authentic favours of India into Britain
it was a massive step forward.
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Actually, if you havent tried cooking with the a Pataks spice paste you should give it a go. Theyre prob-
ably the next best thing to grinding the spices yourself. But whos got time to do that today? And once
youve opened a jar, because its oil based, it stays fresh for up to 4 weeks.
My mum joins in
My Dad, left his academic studies when he was 17 and went into the
business full time. It was him who saw the potential for Indian food.
But I dont know if he ever imagined that it could become such an
accepted and loved part of British culture. He met my Mum on a
buying trip to India. It must have been love at frst sight because
they got married three months later. Only later he found out that
she had a degree in Food Technology and Hotel Management. So it
was no surprise when she joined the company and started working
on new ways of sharing our familys love of Indian food with Britain.
One of her frst big successes was an authentic tandoori paste.
My parents also had great foresight in spotting how the market was
developing. They realised that in the modern day and age, often
with both parents out to work, families didnt have as much time
to cook as before. Their solution was to develop a range of cooking
sauces. Again they proved to be immediate winners. You could get
authentic Indian food in next to no time. And my mums cooking has
been such a success that shes gone on to write three very popular
recipe books.
Sharing the love
As for me, I think Ive pretty much grown up in the family business too. I can even remember as a kid
sticking the labels on jars. I tease my Mum and Dad that getting me to help out was much cheaper for
them than getting a babysitter. But I dont mind because I love food. I even plan my holidays on the basis
of where can I go to eat the most interesting dishes. And going to India to learn more about its food is
something of which Ill never get bored. Especially if I can bring back what Ive learned and use it in our
kitchens to work on developing new products for Pataks.
Like I said at the start its an amazing story. But, for me, the best part of it is what you bring to it. Our
family has always loved Indian food. And now, so many of you do too. If weve managed to play a small
part in being able to make that happen, it makes me and my parents very happy. And it would have made
my grandfather, who landed in this country on a cold November day back in 1957 with no more than fve
pounds in his pocket, very proud.
Anjali Pathak
Kirit Pathak