MTR is synonymous with good, wholesome traditional fare. Celebrating the food from regional kitchens, with authentic recipes that were probably passed down generations, a Karnataka food festival was held in the city, that celebrated the South Indian cuisine in its entirety. Sanjay Sharma, CEO, has been following this local ingredient trail for the past seven years, and he lets us in on the secret to ajji’s cooking...
Share a bit about the festival and its recipes?
The festival was a result of years of groundwork conducted by the company and its research division — Center of Excellence. An attempt to come close to ethnic flavours, the center conducted cuisine studies across Karnataka with home-cooks from various regions over the past three years. The recipes revealed were either used for product development or curated and preserved. The Karnataka Food Festival is a way of giving these recipes back to the people of Karnataka.
The brand is something every local person has grown up with. Any favourites?
The festival was not about our products. It was actually a showcase of recipes that have been forgotten or not made commercially. Karnataka has a rich and varied cuisine. The Mangalore and Kodagu food was an interesting part as well.
Any historical snippets of traditional recipes?
Every recipe curated has its own little history. There are some dishes that have been influenced by neighbouring Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh or communities or religion of that region.
Your role, what inspires you?
I head the company as the CEO, and oversee all functions. The one job that I personally love as a foodie, is strategising how to bring back ethnic food to the table. While we have experimented and adapted to other cuisines, we have somewhere along the way forgotten our own culinary heritage. It gives me great inspiration to introduce ethnic food in easily consumable formats.
What are the new areas you are exploring?
One of the newest areas we have entered into is breakfast-in-a-cup space. This was again a result of consumer insight – we saw people had the least time, and hence sacrificed the most important meal of the day. We wanted to eliminate this by giving our consumer hot Indian breakfast in easy-to-use formats. We introduced three variants of Poha and Upma.
