local storiesJuly 8, 2022

Hidden Gems: Meet Bhanu Desai

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bhanu Desai.

Hi Bhanu, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
While currently in Los Angeles now, my journey started in Gujarat, India. My family moved to Canada seeking to build a new life. My parents worked and saved for almost a decade. They then eventually moved us to the US, where they were able to purchase their own small hotel where we could live as well as operate the business. We all participated in the day-to-day operations, laundry, cleaning and setting up rooms, and cleaning the pool. There were no employees other than the five of us. Those early days gave me the foundation to build to where I am now. From very poor beginnings, and always as the only brown-skinned girl in my schools, I didn’t know then that being different could not stop my ability to turn hard work into success. My Indian culture has strong traditions and connections. I could take strength from that, and from my parent’s example. As I grew, I added the strength of the American belief that women can also be entrepreneurs.

While my culture, as with all, has so many wonderfully strong women figures, we as women can be conditioned to put our personal dreams on the back burner. It hasn’t been easy to venture out on one’s own. It took a lot for me to strike out as I have but I want to share my story that culture, identity and dreams can be a powerful combination as we women work to make our contributions to this world.

I had happily followed tradition and married young, had children and followed expectations, working in the family’s hospitality industry. Things went well but I always felt deep inside of me I wanted to create something all my own. Around the time I was turning fifty, my first solo business venture was taking responsibility for owning and operating a hotel of my own. Although I was successful in this business I’d grown up in, I still felt a yearning for something more.

I found myself ordering a book on Amazon on how to start a food business. I was so taken by the ideas, I reached out to the author who stoked my interest even further. Around the same time, I joined a spirituality-based “Solopreneur” MasterMind class which gave me the confidence to take my next steps.

As I love cooking and feeding my family and friends, their appreciation of Indian flavors inspired me to find a way to share them. Growing up, we always cooked Indian food in our home. I also raised my family on it. I was always doctoring up American food with my Indian flavors. So I decided to start a line of Indian-inspired cooking sauces not only to save time on my Indian recipes but to enhance flavors of American recipes as well. That’s how Guju came to be!

I believe that cooking is one of the most powerful ways to bring people together because it’s a universal language across all cultures. As a woman growing up in three different countries, this has never escaped me. I created these sauces to help make-at-home meal prep faster and easier without compromising taste. The sauces are to help the home chef put your spin on Indian cuisine using everyday ingredients you find in your kitchen. Noodles, vegetables, leftover chicken or whatever is in your fridge, it doesn’t matter, our sauces will make the ordinary extraordinary.

I truly believe it’s never too late to follow your dreams, that’s how Guju was born and I’m proud that Guju is a woman-owned business.

Here’s to many memorable meals!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
With my previous life spent in the business of hospitality, the business aspects of the food industry were foreign to me. I researched, took classes, attended conventions, sought consultations. Slowly it began to come together for me. I sought expertise to work with me in this startup and was able to benefit from excellent outside experience. I was painfully aware of my technological limits in the current business world. It didn’t help that Guju’s beginnings coincided with the pandemic; we were all deprived of personal meetings on the complexities of a start-up. Despite Covid, I was very fortunate to work with so many talented and supportive professionals. I regret not meeting in person all the wonderful individuals who helped me bring my dream to life. It worked out that my primary business base was sufficiently strong that I could pursue this dream independently. Taking on a totally new business is certainly challenging, but I feel so proud that my blessings of family, culture, hard work and the American Dream came together for me.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Guju?
Although Guju is available on my website and on Amazon, my dream for Guju is to see it on the shelves in specialty and organic and gourmet food stores locally. I want potential consumers to learn that the sauces aren’t just an Indian specialty but are also easily used as a dip, spread and to make a wide variety of traditional American foods even more interesting. I will be continuing to work on that!

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
A surprising fact about me that most people don’t guess is how much I enjoy gardening and growing vegetables that I use in preparing my own Indian food. Though I consider myself painfully shy, I am proud of my resourcefulness in pursuing other experts for their help. On the business side, surprisingly, my hospitality management experience applied to my new business. I had to learn about factory production, quality control and distribution. I was amazed at how the old and new businesses flowed together so smoothly.

Not so surprisingly I am blessed with friends who love me and keep reinforcing my efforts. It is very hard for me to give myself credit; I never even saw myself as a successful businessperson. My friends have reminded me of how often I used to deplore the fact that as I married very young, I never had the opportunity to go to college. They keep telling me to look in the mirror! That there are a whole lot of college graduates who would not have been able to get to where I am and do what I do. I am proof that it is never too late to follow your dreams!

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