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This Bookstore is Spicy (and I Don't Mean the Romance Novels)
- Bob Benenson
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
Anupy Singla Partners With Barbara's Bookstore to Sell Her Spice Blends
Anupy Singla is a former TV journalist and has presented a number of online cooking classes about the foods of her native India, from which she emigrated as a young girl with her family. Her poise in front of a camera is evident in Indian as Apple Pie, the eight-part public television series about Indian cooking that just wrapped up (and is available to view on the website of Chicago station WTTW).
The name "Indian as Apple Pie" derived from Anupy's business, which sells spice blends, sauces and beans online. For a time, the brand had shelf space at Whole Foods Market stores, which according to Anupy ended abruptly after the chain was bought by Amazon.
She is now testing the waters for a retail revival, which includes frozen Indian meals along with her usual product assortment. And Barbara's Bookstore, a Chicago chain that sells Anupy's books on various aspects of Indian cooking, is helping out by selling some of her spice blends next to her cookbooks.
Anupy is a longtime acquaintance and I visited with her recently at the Barbara's in the basement of the Macy's store on State Street in Chicago's Loop (the historic Marshall Field location). I came home with a jar of her garam masala spice blend, and I can say with confidence that it is the first time that I have bought Indian spices in a book store.
The edited interview q-and-a follows.
Q: So we're here in Barbara's Bookstore, and it's not a typical place that I go to buy spices. How did this all come up?
A: It makes complete sense in my brain. That doesn't mean that it does in everyone else's. But when I started writing cookbooks, what drove me to create these spices and these spice blends is accessibility. How do we make it easy for the person that wants to cook something to grab the spices? I don't want them to go to another location. But then also, how do we make it easier for these retailers, like a Barbara's, to make a little extra revenue? There's nothing wrong with that, you've got it all right there, it kind of solves some problems, I would think.
Q: I'm actually surprised this is the first time I've seen this kind of thing, because you got all these cookbooks and they have recipes with ingredients. Why aren't other people thinking so broadly?
A: I think it takes like two to think broadly. It takes an entrepreneur to think broadly, but it also takes a bookstore to think a little bit more broadly. So, if they didn't agree and give me a chance, it wouldn't have really worked, but they said yes on the first ask.
Q: And you were telling me you were very persuasive at your demo, because when the spices went on the shelf here, they kind of flew off.
A: It was crazy. In less than two weeks, we sold two cases, 24 jars. Now, I'm not going to lie, my friends helped... But you know, in all fairness, it's really just about putting the word out... People laugh at me because if there is a book signing, I'm the one that always goes there and absolutely buys the book, right? And that's what I think is what I give out, because I feel like I have to support bookstores, have to support fellow authors, and I think that's what we saw with this whole campaign. And I'm hoping that now that people know it's here, that's the key, is just kind of connecting the dots for everybody.
Q: Tell me a little bit about the challenges, because you've had some ups and some downs.
A: Yeah, I mean a lot of downs in the sense that we were on shelves at Whole Foods not too long ago, and that came about through a lot of personal relationships, just going into the stores, getting to know the buyers. They switched their model, which is up to them how they want to operate, but then it also hurt a lot of small vendors like myself.
But I think what I learned is just to stick with it, and also just to kind of think through what could come ahead, right? I mean, oftentimes we're so happy about getting the business, getting the shelf, but you've got to get off the shelf and really make sure that the product is moving. So it was a really good lesson for me, velocity, velocity and turns, and we're seeing a lot of opportunity outside of urban areas.
We've seen really great turns with places like Neiman Harvest Market, which are grocery stores in Carmel, Indiana, in Springfield and in Champaign. And we've seen communities there not have maybe as many Indian restaurant options, so they really do want to make it at home. So it's just a little bit of a different market, which is helping me to kind of see what these people and these consumers really want, and how it differs, and how it changes market by market.
That's the first thing, but it also helps me get out there and rep my product even more. To me, Bob, that's the essence. Do you rep your product? Do you show up for these retailers? Because if you do personally show up, they feel like they have a relationship with you, they know you, and they will go out of their way to do a little bit more for you. Sometimes they can't, but you just always try to do more for them, and I feel like it just kind of helps overall.
Q: And sampling, especially for a product that may be unfamiliar. That's the deal clincher for you. I mean, when I tasted the recipes that you're now selling [as frozen meals], I was truly blown away. I mean, that was top quality restaurant food.
A: So I'll tell you a story that a lot of people don't actually really know. My first book was The Indian Slow Cooker, it came out in 2010 and it was insane how many copies we sold of that. That was like an online phenomenon. We sold maybe close to 100,000 copies... We were going through like 7,000 copies a week.
It was just crazy, but you know how that started? The nugget of it was I had so much food, it was crockpots, slow cookers in my house, like 12 of them at one time. I didn't want to throw the food away, so I just invited everyone to come and pick up. No coming in the house, I didn't have time, they would just come up and they would get the food and taste it.
What built that base was they had to taste the Indian food in order to know that they would actually want to go out and make it and make the effort and pay the money to buy the spices and all of that, and that just started the nugget of that. And then the books that came after.
But I think that's the key. Sampling is absolutely so important.
Q: The consumer palette is more sophisticated, including in the kind of areas you described, smaller cities, rural areas. Actually, it's kind of bizarre with what's going on in this country and the whole attack on immigration, yet people are lusting after new tastes, global tastes.
A: You have to be the right ambassador for it. I find if someone says, 'I really don't like Indian food,' which a lot of people do say, the response isn't, 'How dare you.' For me, the response really is, it's your full right to not like, we're good, no worries, right?' But when you approach it that way, they're more apt to try and go, 'You know what, I'm sorry, you're just so nice. So I just let me just give it a go.' You never know. And then they end up usually liking it.
There's always that couple percentages, say like 3 percent, that's still like, 'Oh, I don't like it.' That's fair, because you tried it, now you really know. And then that's totally fine. There's a lot of things that I don't care for, so I think when you approach things that way and you don't finger-wag at people, and you're like, 'Hey, I respect your choice,' I think people come around oftentimes.
Q: Seeing your posts about how your frozen product is doing, and what really amounts as kind of a grocery focus group is pretty impressive, because it's not the cheapest product in the freezer case...
A: We worried about that, but I think it's about making the relationship, so creating the personal touches. A lot of things that helped in these markets was giving online Zoom classes... That is what pulled in a lot of people from these other markets, and one couple stopped me in Springfield and said, 'I have to talk to you because you are the very reason why I actually eat Indian food now. My wife took a class with you, we did the chicken curry, it is phenomenal. We make it for our Asian friends. They love it. They think we get it from a restaurant, so it's like learning the magical few touches.' Usually, those are the spices and the order in which you put them. And you created a relationship that now it's a consumer product, they're going to buy it, they're going to love your brand, they're going to keep coming back for it.
Q: Relationship is such a key word.I'm doing what I'm doing now because of networking and how open this community is to accepting new people. We arrived in Chicago 15 years in Chicago, I could never have imagined that things would unfold the way they have.
Green City Market had a tour on June 27 with Jake Potashnick from Feld Restaurant in Ukrainian Village. He just won the James Beard Best Chef Great Lakes Award. His philosophy is "relationship to table." He says he eschews "farm to table," because it's all about developing the relationships with the farmers and the producers. I think it works that same way with consumers, the more you connect on a one-to-one human basis.
A: I would also take it a bit further. If you're looking at some of the biggest challenges in these grocery stores outside of urban areas, and in urban areas, it's labor. You could work with somebody in one market, a week later it's someone else that is figuring out your SKUs, whether you're gonna get on the shelf or not.
It's constantly shifting and moving, so if you get frustrated and you take it out on them, they already have so much going on, they're not worried about losing a SKU or two or a company or two. I've actually gone to various markets, shown up day of a class, been told, 'Oh, we canceled it, the person who was running it quit this morning,' and I'm like, 'Well, did you think to call me?' and they didn't, because they have so much on their mind, or whatever it is. You could react in a certain way, you could also react in a different way that makes them say, 'You know what, we just want to work with this person, because they're in it for the long haul.'
And I think I learned that from reporting. Things come up for people, and if you want to be frustrated by it, you can choose to do that. But you might want to take it as 'I might need grace at some point too. So, let me just chill out a little bit and not take it so seriously and learn something.'
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