Amy's Kitchen, an American home-style food chain is coming to India

Berliners don't like to call Amy's Kitchen a company, rather they call it a home-style kitchen

It all started when Rachel Berliner was pregnant and unable to cook at home. “My husband, Andy, is not a good cook. He would buy frozen food, which would taste just terrible,” she says. That’s when Berliner realised that there was hardly any convenience food in the market that was organic, healthy and vegetarian. “If you read the list of ingredients on the pack, these frozen foods have stuff like hydrogenated starch and more, which you can’t even pronounce,” she says. So, she, together with Andy, started Amy’s Kitchen — named after their daughter — in 1987 as one of the first organic, vegetarian and non-GMO convenience and frozen food brands in the US. An integral part of the global progressive food movement, the Berliners don’t like to call Amy’s Kitchen a company, rather they call it a family-run home-style kitchen, where a community of farmers, friends and employees contribute to the recipe development.
 
Selling over a million meals worldwide across cuisines such as Spanish, Mexican, Italian, and more, they are now establishing a footprint in India as well with their products retailing at Modern Bazaar, Le Marche, Foodhall and HyperCITY in Delhi NCR. “Amy’s Kitchen will be in Mumbai by next year,” she says. Internationally, their Indian range of products featuring mutter paneer and vegetable korma do very well. However, in Delhi, it is Amy’s soups, enchiladas and pizzas that are becoming popular. “I really like their tomato soup and also the spinach pizza is very good. You can tell the high quality of ingredients that go into the products,” says Ruchira Hoon-Philip, chef and food blogger.
 

I ask her if the words “frozen” and “preservative-free” can ever go hand in hand. “If you flash freeze anything, it won’t require preservatives. Which is what they do,” she says. “Going preservative-free in India is a very tough thing but it’s working well for them. They have marketed themselves well and are retailing in stores where the products are well-refrigerated and kept in a good condition.” According to Berliner, their USP lies in knowing exactly what will happen to the dish in its journey from the freezer to the microwave and that the taste of the dish won’t change on being heated.  
 
It’s the recipe development process that is really interesting, with friends and neighbours coming into the kitchen in California and teaching the team their heirloom recipes. “Someone will come in and show how to make the garam masala or the perfect butter paneer. We work with local bakers to perfect the pizzas. Also, we work with a lot of farmers to get the best produce,” says Berliner, who spends a lot of time training her team to maintain consistency in standards. As the brand has grown, the Berliners have focused on hiring quality people. “But families that have been associated with Amy’s Kitchen from the beginning are still continuing on this journey with us. For instance, Fred had been our chef for many years. Now his son has joined us as well,” she says.
 

In the past couple of years, the team has also come up with items that are gluten-free and vegan as well. “At our drive-through restaurant in California, all our pastas are gluten-free. If someone is allergic to dairy, we can customise a meal for him or her as well. The idea is to be able to make something for everyone. I really want to take care of people,” says Berliner.