MetroWest Daily News
May 5, 2007
By Jennifer Lord

Sudbury entrepreneur cooks up snack chip featuring flavors of India

When Paul Jaggi decided to get back into the food business, he wanted to find a way to combine American tastes with the Asian flavors of the foods he enjoys. For his first product, the Sudbury resident considered the potato chip - a classic snack food with a low price point, a market area where consumers are always willing to try something new. His native India had a similar product, the papadum, traditionally made with lentils and crafted into a tortilla-size shape.

Jaggi experimented with various methods - lentils were deemed to strong in flavor so he substituted fava beans - until he hit upon a papadum chip that stayed crunchy yet not greasy and served as a platform for traditional Indian flavors such as tandoori seasonings and mango chutney. And, in tribute to his mother, he branded this product with his loving name for her: Baji.

"I thought I was done with this,'' said Jaggi, whose previous company, Ethnic Gourmet Foods, was sold to Heinz Frozen Foods in 2001. "I just enjoyed the food business and one of the things I really enjoyed was how we could bring a unique cuisine our American level.''

Baji's Papadums have been sold at Whole Foods, Wild Oats and smaller health foods stores for the past eight months. While papadums resemble potato chips, they are healthier, with no trans-fats or cholesterol and a higher protein content. The Baji's label currently includes four flavors: Traditional Tandoori, Mango Chutney, Tangy Cilantro and Creamy Yogurt & Dill.

"The tandoori is our best-selling so far. It's more of a familiar flavor,'' Jaggi said. "The chutney has an interesting flavor - it starts out sweet and becomes hot - and it's been rather successful.''

Jaggi's new company is called Passion Foods, reflecting, yes, his passion for food. He started out in the food business after emigrating from India in 1985 to help his brother run an Indian restaurant in Framingham.

The MBA-trained Jaggi, who had run his own industrial machine tools company back in India, found his thoughts turning to other ways to profit from the family business and, in 1991, he started packaging frozen Indian meals under the Taj Gourmet Foods name to sell to local health food stores such as Bread & Circus, which was later acquired by Whole Foods Markets.

The company was enlarged in 1997 when Jaggi acquired the Thai Chef and Bravissimo brands and integrated them into what was then called Ethnic Gourmet Foods. The company was sold first to Heinz and then to Hein Celestial in 2004, with Jaggi leaving his position as general manager that same year. The Framingham plant, which produced Ethnic Gourmet's product line was closed in 2006.

At a loss for what to do next, Jaggi started experimenting in his own kitchen. Most of the Passion Foods' line has been developed there to the occasional dismay of his wife, Sangeeta, who finds his style of taking out every spice and using every dish during his cooking sessions off-putting. They came to an agreement: Jaggi would leave the kitchen as organized and clean as he originally found it.

The company recently introduced a second product line, a series of shelf-stable meals based on Basmati rice. Flavors include Jambalaya, Lemongrass & Basil, Paella, Nasi Goreng, and Lentil Rice Biryani and each is designed as a full vegetarian meal that can be easily heated in a microwave.

"People know what rice is. They get rice, it's familiar,'' Jaggi said. "We needed to bring in the ethnic flavors. We used Basmati rice and we didn't want to make it just a side dish. This can be a meal for vegetarians, or you could, for example, add shrimp to the jambalaya.

"Convenience is the main thing,'' he added. "That's why people get intimidated by ethnic products: complicated cooking. We take that away.''

Jaggi is now looking at nuts, considering ways to add ethnic spices to the most basic of snacks, the peanut. He is also experimenting with smoothies, noting that yogurt-based drinks are popular in many Asian cultures.

Passion Foods consists of only six people in its Sudbury office. It contracts the chip business to a Houston company while the rice dishes are made in India.

A portion of the company's sales is donated to two global charities that focus on the education and nutrition of underprivileged children in Third World countries, Asha for Education and Vidya Integrated Development for Youth and Adults, which is dedicated to helping women and children.

"This is kind of my homage to my mother,'' Jaggi said. "She is no longer with us, but I wanted to give something back, in her name. My mother raised a large family - I had 11 brothers and sisters - and I remember her always preparing delicious meals for all of us, usually something simple like lentils and rice. She was always singing, she was such a sweet spirit.''

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