For many Indian travellers, finding vegetarian food abroad can be a real challenge. Neha, a 38-year-old homemaker from Delhi, recalls, “My husband was always struggling to find reliable vegetarian food during his business trips abroad. There were times when he would skip meals just because he couldn’t find anything suitable to eat.”

The search for convenient, healthy, and satisfying meals while travelling can often turn into a nightmare. With long flights and unfamiliar locations, finding a meal that is both nutritious and comforting is not simple.

Whether it’s students living abroad, professionals on business trips, or even families away from home, the desire for a practical yet wholesome meal remains a difficult challenge. Traditional ready-to-eat meals are often loaded with preservatives, artificial additives, and synthetic flavours, making them not only hard on the digestive system but also contributing to a range of health issues. Many people are on the lookout for a product that feels like home, a meal that provides comfort, is nutritious and does not compromise on taste.

Amit and Shalu Murarka, a travel-loving couple from Kolkata, often struggled to find vegetarian food options during their trips abroad. While they were on a journey to Switzerland in 2016, they came across the concept of dehydrated food. Amit recalls, “We saw someone travelling with a ready-to-eat soup packet. He simply added water and started eating. He told us it was dehydrated food and he had been consuming it for almost four years.”

This discovery sparked an idea, leading them to create a solution that combined convenience with nutrition.

Birth of Spice Up Foods: Delivering healthy and home-cooked meals

Recognising the potential, the couple decided to turn their discovery into a solution that could help not only themselves but others as well. They set out to create Spice Up Foods, a brand focused on delivering preservative-free and home-cooked meals. Wondering how they make all this possible?

Amit’s background as a chartered financial analyst and Shalu’s experience in organising cookery workshops laid the foundation for this unique venture. With their passion for food and an understanding of business, they realised there was a massive demand for healthy, ready-to-eat meals that didn’t rely on preservatives. As Shalu tells The Better India, “We wanted to provide food that not only tasted like home but also maintained its quality and freshness for a long time without compromising on health.”

While the idea of dehydrated food had been around for some time, the couple soon realised that the technique they wanted to use, freeze-drying, was a whole different ballgame. Unlike the conventional method of dehydration, freeze-drying removes moisture from food without compromising its structure, texture, or nutritional value. “It’s the same technique used to preserve food for astronauts, ensuring they have nutritious meals while travelling in space for extended periods,” explains Amit.

The duo aims to bridge the gap between the convenience of ready-to-eat meals and the need........

© The Better India