New food success: Aussie pie with an Indian twist

In 2021, on Channel 7’s Plate of Origin, married couple Simran and Ash Gulati designed and cooked their flavoursome Samosa Pie creation. Since then, their business has leapt from strength to strength and they are now planning to upscale further.

The couple entered the competition encouraged by their passion for eating and cooking, and the challenge was to take an Australian dish and add a cultural twist. They chose a classic Australian pie, but cooked it with Indian flavours: samosa, butter chicken and keema lamb in three different sizes.

Wanting to create a successful business from their TV creation, the Gulati family initially made the pies at home in their DA-approved kitchen, marketing them on social media.

Now in their upscaled commercial kitchen, approximately 1500–2000 pies are made each week. A vendor purchases the pies frozen and is responsible for marketing and selling them.

According to Ash, the business’s success has largely been due to Simran’s visibility and influence in the South Asian community.

Despite this, there are still some challenges facing the couple, such as logistical issues with capturing a wider market.

“We want to expand to more geographic areas and definitely have our pies in major metropolitan cities,” Ash said.

However, inventory management can be costly and difficult at times because demand changes from week to week. “It’s bit of a chicken and egg — we can’t scale not knowing if we will sell the pies we make. So do we scale or wait for sales or vice versa — timing is key here.”

Currently, Ash handles the administration side of the business and Simran focuses on marketing via social media and within her personal networks. Simran labelled it “a relay race” requiring respect and communication between her and Ash.

In the past few months, the company’s sales have been consistent so the next steps will be improving their distribution structure and automating the pie process with a new pie production line.