Ayr firm behind Aldi's top 'Iron Brew' pakora reveal family secrets of recipe to success
Punjab Pakora are approaching their tenth year in business, with demand for their products seeing the firm look to expand their premises in 2024 and double their workforce.
Irn Bru and pakora might sound like an unlikely combo but it’s a flavour pairing which has seen stocks fly off the shelves in supermarkets up and down the country.
The brains behind the Scottish-inspired Indian dish is family-run firm Punjab Pakora, located in the heart of Ayr, who supply their selection of pakoras - including chicken, vegetable and haggis - in Aldi, Sainsburys and Iceland.
The business, who operate with a 42-strong workforce, also produce delicious curries such as chicken tikka masala, kormas and chicken jalfrezi.
Aldi Scotland sold over three million pieces of pakora in 2022 thanks to its partnership with the Duggal family.
Director Vinita Duggal, who runs Punjab Pakora with husband Kushal and their three children, said: “We launched Iron Brew Pakora in September 2021, and we are the only company to have this product in the whole UK.
“We redid it in September 2022 and January 2023 - all three runs have been successful.
“This was my recipe and Kushal developed it with the help of my son.
“It’s nice - it’s got a sweet, spicy and salty flavour.
“It’s like a science - it was like being in a lab making it.”
Son Dhruv, aged 22, said the Iron Brew infused pakora took “a couple of months to perfect” with dad Kushal, who previously worked as a chef to some of the wealthiest sheikhs in Dubai.
Dhruv said: “Every week we were making new samples, so it was a lot of different recipes.
“The problem with Irn Bru was because it’s got colouring itself, when you fry it it goes dark very quickly.
“So we had to find the right consistency and right temperature.
“This year we’re trying to work on something new for the end of the year.
“Every year we aim for at least one to two new products.”
Amongst those mouth-watering novelty products are beer-battered pakora and chicken pakora strips.
But a firm favourite remains trusty old vegetable pakora.
Dhruv said: “With the chicken strips, we didn’t expect them to do this much volume.
“Our most popular product is the vegetable and onion pakora - that’s a large seller and one of our best.
“It’s consistent and always well favoured by every supermarket we work with.
“Since Covid we noticed a trend change. It used to be chicken pakora but after Covid it flipped to vegetable.
“We’re trying to develop our vegan range, so that’s a huge market we’re wanted to tap into, as well as frozen''
Tapping into frozen goods now sees the firm setting their sights on a new premises - one they can build from the ground up - and doubling their workforce.
“We’re looking for a bigger site and land,” said Vinita.
“There’s going to be more staff, more facilities.
“That’ll be our third move - I don’t want another move after that!
“The new premises will be in Ayr as we don’t want to leave South Ayrshire Council - they always help us.”
Dhruv added: “If we expand we’re looking at possibly a double workforce. We’re working towards 80 - 100 workers.
“It’s a site we’d have to build from scratch, including putting electricity wires in. It’s starting from nothing but it’s ours and built the way we want it.
“It’ll account for future growth and having a frozen section.”
Punjab Pakora - who are set to mark their tenth anniversary in business this November - have scooped an award every year since starting in 2013; the latest seeing them receive a Highly Commended for Outstanding Business of the Year at Oceanic’s Scottish Asian & Business Awards 2022.
We won the “Indian Food Brand of the Year” at the Prestige Awards!
The “Prestige Awards” celebrate both individuals and businesses in the UK that offer excellent products and services and they also seek to recognise the contribution that the small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make to the economy. The awards are given out by region and each company nominated must prove that they have been the best in their market over a 12-month period. This is supported by client testimonials, accreditations received and evidence of the work and growth carried out by the company.
So, it is our absolute pleasure to announce that Punjab Pakora received the award for “Indian Food Brand of the Year” for 2021 from Prestige Awards. The team is both grateful and honoured to receive this award, which reflects all the hard work and growth that the company has put in over the past few years. We have seen our company expand, win new contracts, recruit new staff and launch many new products. To be recognised within the SME business community for all of this makes all that hard work worthwhile. We’re so happy to have acknowledged in this way and would like to thank everyone in our team, our clients and customers.
With 2021 drawing to a close and 2022 on the horizon, the team at Punjab Pakora are looking forward to another year of working hard, creating new products and meeting new customers. If you want to talk to us now to see what we have planned and to explore how we can work together, you can always speak to one of the team through our website.
Punjab Pakora in Top 50 Scottish Food & Drink Companies
The Punjab Pakora team are delighted to announce that we are finishing 2021 by featuring in the top 50 Scottish food and drink brands, as selected by judges for the Scottish Grocer Magazine. Despite challenging retail conditions for the entire food and drink sector throughout the coronavirus pandemic, our company has gone from strength to strength by being one of only a handful of new entries to this prestigious list.
Punjab Pakora appears in the top 50 alongside companies such as Tunnock’s, Baxters and Barr and welcome being listed with such well-known brand names. Sharing a platform with these other long-established companies reflects all the hard work that our team has put in over the past few years through our company growth, new product development and product launches.
We welcome the congratulations offered from the Scottish Grocer Magazine team and are pleased to be featured both in their latest magazine and on their website. You can visit their website to view the top 50 Scottish food and drink brands here.
Our company has had such an exciting and rewarding 2021 and we couldn’t be happier to finish the year as part of the top 50 food and drink companies in Scotland. We can look back across the past twelve months and feel proud of our team and our achievements, plus now we’re looking forward to what 2022 will bring!
New product launch success with Aldi Scotland
Year on year, Indian cuisine tops the popularity charts in Scotland and it’s often washed down with a certain special Scottish orange coloured drink! So, it’s no surprise then that our latest product launch, Iron Brew pakora and beer battered pakora, flew off the shelves this year. At Punjab Pakora, we pride ourselves on constantly innovating on our products and in 2021 we married our quality pakora with Scotland’s favourite drink to create our Iron Brew pakora.
We took this to market along with beer battered pakora and our partner, Aldi Scotland, stocked it at nearly 100 stores across Scotland. Not only did our new products taste great, but they looked great too with distinctive tartan packaging in recognisable orange and blue.
The new products were part of a limited range developed for Scottish Food and Drink Fortnight, an annual event that sets out to celebrate everything wonderful about Scottish cuisine up and down the country. We were delighted to join the celebration this year of everything special in Scottish food and drink and even happier when we learned that our products were sold out!
Being part of a national celebration of Scottish food and drink offerings was extremely rewarding and it was wonderful to have the support of our partner, Aldi Scotland, to get our products on to shelves across the nation.
You can contact us through our website to learn more about our products, where they are stocked and how you can work with us. We can’t wait to hear from you!