South Amboy Kitchen’s beginnings started with Ma Ka Khana LLC dba Bebe’s All Natural (Indian Vegan Cooking Sauces).
For years, South Amboy Kitchen’s owner and founder, Davinder Sawhney, mastered the art of preparing rich sauces and gravies. Whether it was for a quick snack, or a gathering of family and friends, she always created authentic meals with love in each bite.
Sawhney quickly realized that her sauces and gravies were the key to everyone’s heart. To simplify this time-consuming process in making the sauces, she started preparing jars to offer, and Bebe’s All Natural developed. ‘BeBe’, pronounced ‘Bay-bay’, means ‘Grandmother’ or ‘Mother’ in the Punjabi Language, from the northern region of India, where the sauces and gravies originate.
The team at Bebe’s All Natural began working on developing a product and a brand that could stand out as authentic, all-natural, and liked and craved by consumers. The launch of the product started from a home kitchen, recipe developing and product testing, and grew to commercial making and jarring.
They hosted a soft launch of their products at a local farmers market, where they realized that the “taste to sale” conversion rate during taste tests was almost 95%. They had developed a steady stream of repeat customers. Bebe’s All Natural gradually added two more farmers markets and approached a few local convenience & health food stores. They started to see a solid, favorable response to the products.
As they worked on building the foundation of Bebe’s All Natural, the team started to develop a plan to build a small production facility. The goal was to develop it in order to help other entrepreneurs who were working towards their food business goals.
Throughout the process of developing Bebe’s All Natural, they realized that there were so many entrepreneurs trying to understand and navigate the process of establishing a new food/ CPG business. As they worked out a plan to build a production facility, they decided to construct it so that the resources could benefit the community they lived and worked in. They came across an old harmonica sales and music teaching establishment. The building was perfectly suitable for kitchen conversion, due to its vicinity, floor plan and existing electric, gas, and plumbing infrastructure. Alas, the Bebe’s All Natural sister establishment, South Amboy Kitchen LLC, was born.
South Amboy Kitchen’s mission is, “Universal Sewa (Service to humanity) without considering cast, creed, color, nationality or religion, is a Rental kitchen that is there to provide an ecosystem of support services and infrastructure for culinary entrepreneurs with a dream to make it a reality.”
They define themselves as, “a collective of individuals striving to build delightful products.” They are located in The Town of South Amboy, NJ, a vibrant and diverse community, bustling with the energy of an upcoming suburb of New York.
Looking Ahead…
Operations manager, Sarabjit Sawhney shared, “Starting any business has its challenges, but food-based businesses have a very unique set of obstacles to overcome. One of the first and most common problems food-based businesses face is finding a suitable commercial kitchen space in their area of operation or where they want to establish or grow their business. Our aim is to address that need by providing low-risk access to clean and affordable kitchen space, a storage facility and other related services to help establish and grow their business.”
South Amboy Kitchen’s ultimate goal is to reach the heights of success and prosperity, and to build up and maintain the integrity and standards of an established business model with the help of their mentors and peers. They want to leave a legacy.
Words of advice from South Amboy Kitchen:
“Believe in yourself, believe in your product, believe in and follow your dreams, and keep your eyes on your goal/target. Don’t let anyone distract you from achieving your goal. Listen to everyone’s advice and evaluate every eventual outcome based on that advice. Go with your gut feeling. Don’t stop if you become tired, STOP only when you are done and have achieved your goal.”
