Concept Arbitrage: Knorr

Knorr is the largest brand of the Unilever company. They make prepared food that is sold throughout the world in grocery stores.

I have often wondered why great Indian, Chinese, Thai, or French recipes are not available as prepared food … not enough, anyway …

Jeff Nolan once asked me that if I were doing venture capital right now, what kinds of ventures would I look at investing in. One of the segments I talked about in that conversation was prepared food.

So yesterday, as I unwrapped a frozen Paratha from the freezer, I looked at the packaging, and found the name of the brand that makes the product. It was called Deep Foods, a New Jersey family-owned business founded by a Gujarati woman called Bhagawati Amin in 1977. The company is at about $18 Million today, and sells through the Indian grocery stores in the US. A New York Times Article about them is here.

If this captures your fancy, and if you have a family of cooks to tap into, I’d say, go for it!

There are so many nuances and possibilities to this … Gujarati Food, South Indian Food, Goan Food, Keralite Food, Bengali Food, Tangra-Chinese, Bombay-Chinese, Sikkimese, Nepalese, New Mexican, Italian, Coq au Vin, Waterzooi, Nasi Goreng …

Now I am hungry.

This segment is a part in the series : Concept Arbitrage