From Japan to Goan Curry: Product Samples and a fresh start in 2025

How a trip across the world helped me refine my vision - and why I need your help testing my new curry pastes!

Hi guys, it’s been a while!

Those of you who follow me on instagram will know all about my huge business detour to go to Japan, but for those of you who aren’t on social media, here’s a little update:

This time last year I was in full new product development mode. In fact I shared a newsletter on making my first batches of Goan curry sauce here:

Diary of a food business founder

However, out of nowhere on a sunny May bank holiday, my dog Schroeder suddenly went into acute heart failure, which if not treated immediately is fatal. He suffers from Mitral Valve Disease, a degnerative disease of the mitral valve in the heart and he’s had this condition since 2021, though it has been well managed with medication and progressing at a rather slow and controlled rate. What I learnt the hard way however was that at any moment, tendons in the heart can just snap and bring on heart failure and this is what happened in May, and again in September and then again in December. Each time, his lungs filled with fluid and he required intravenous diuretics and several days in an oxygen tank. By Christmas time, the only way to keep him alive was to travel 14 hours across the world to Japan to the pioneers in canine mitral valve repair surgery in Yokohama and get his little ticker stitched up! It was one of the most intense and stressful experiences of my life and forced me to hit pause on everything relating to growing my business in order to research and organise his surgery. While I juggled caring for him, closely monitoring his condition for any changes that would require immediate hospitalisation, and liaising with his cardiologist to try new experimental medication, I was also working all summer as a private chef. This didn’t leave much time to grow a business but I knew I wasn’t in the headspace and didn’t have the time to dedicate myself to it so I parked it wth the promise I’d return to Yesterday’s Curry after Japan.

Well, now it’s after Japan, and I’ve come back with a renewed sense of what I want to focus on. Before my trip, things felt a little up in the air. I was debating transitioning from dry spice blends to a sauce, and I was almost certain I wanted to change my business name and rebrand entirely. Thankfully loads of people told me they loved the name and not to change it, so I took that feedback on board! Looking back, I now see why the spice blends weren’t quite landing the way I’d hoped - British consumers aren’t familiar enough with Goan food to confidently cook with them. How can I expect people to make a dish they’ve never eaten before?

That’s when it clicked: a range of pastes makes so much more sense. Unlike dry spice blends, pastes already contain the right balance of flavours, making them foolproof. There’s far less guesswork, no need to source extra ingredients like fresh coconut, and crucially, much less cooking involved. It transforms Goan food from something intimidating and unfamiliar to something quick, easy, and accessible—without compromising authenticity.

At first, I envisioned selling my curry paste in jars, but the more I thought about it, the more a single-use pouch made sense. A pouch that serves two people feels far more practical - people can use the whole thing in one go without worrying about leftovers sitting at the back of the fridge, slowly losing their freshness. Jars are great in theory, but once opened, they have a limited shelf life, and I know from experience that half-used jars of curry paste often go to waste. A pouch format solves that problem while keeping the flavors as vibrant as possible.

All of these new decisions have given me a renewed sense of clarity about what I want my business to be: the UK’s first truly modern Goan food brand. Right now, my focus is on developing the Goan fish curry masala, but I see this range expanding to include xacuti, caldine, vindaloo, ambot tik, and marinades like recheado and cafreal - plus pickles to round it all out. My dry spice blends will be making a comeback but with more versatility, think all rounder spices that you can add to all sorts of dishes, not like the previous range which were aimed at making specific curries.

More than anything, I want more people to know about Goan cuisine. The Indian food market in the UK has been dominated by the same handful of dishes for so long - tikka masala, madras, jalfrezi, butter chicken, korma (all dishes I love eating btw) - but India’s regional diversity is where the real magic is. It’s time for these lesser-known cuisines to have their moment, and Goan food just hits different. My goal is to make that happen, by creating products that make it easy for people to experience the incredible depth of Goan flavours in their own kitchens.

Before I commit to a commercial kitchen again, the next stage is scaling up my recipe and testing the market. And that’s where you guys come in.

My new wet stone grinder arrived the other day, and it’s a game changer! I can now make up to 3kg of mixture at a time, which is not huge but for my needs right now that’s amazing compared to the tiny batches I was doing before in my bullet blender and thermomix. The benefit of this grinder too is that it can make a very smooth paste, the way they do it in India - the blender just never quite cuts through all of the hard bits of spice and coconut. While I start looking into custom-designed pouches and getting some branding elements professionally refined, I want to begin gathering feedback - not just on how the paste tastes, but also how it works logistically for home cooks. Does it feel easy to use? Does it simplify the cooking process? Is the portioning right? This time around, I want to iterate based on real user feedback and create the best possible Goan curry paste.

I’ve also been working on my recheado masala for months now and discovered that it’s at its best after about two months of maturation. That means I need early testers for this too! It would be great to get a mix of Goans and non Goans so I can see how my products resonate with those who are familiar with these dishes and those who aren’t. Unfortunately this only applies to people in the UK right now because of postage and I estimate I will looking to send samples out in about a month’s time, once I have started scaling up my recipes and getting to grips with my new grinder.

If you are intersted in sampling, please fill out this form and I will drop you an email when I have stuff ready to send:

APPLICATION FORM TO TASTE TEST SAMPLE PRODUCTS

Thanks guys, and you can follow along with all other updates on instagram:

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