(SPONSORED CONTENT) Local Upstarts is a new, quarterly digital column that celebrates local entrepreneurs who have participated in the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation's (WARF) UpStart program, a free entrepreneurship program for women and people of color.
When actor and author Alan Alda spoke about “food and love–which are of course the same thing,” he was describing an experience of interconnectedness that is deeply familiar to Sara Parthasarathy.
Food as an expression of love was the seed from which Flavor Temptations grew, nurtured in the fertile soil of appreciation for culture, community, connection and, most importantly, the love between a mother and her son.
Today, Flavor Temptations, co-founded by Sara and her husband Partha Sabniviss in 2014, crafts perfectly proportioned spice blends to go along with their easy-to-follow recipes for traditional Indian dishes. These are not set-and-forget instant meals, but rather road maps to bring us closer to the destination of understanding why we use these ingredients in this order. “We are passionate about introducing people to Indian culture through Indian food,” Sara says, adding that cooking from scratch is how “you really get to appreciate the spices that go in, and understand how they work together, how the flavor profile is created, how the layering happens.”
The first layer in the story of Flavor Temptations was the moment when Sara’s son Gautam left for college, taking with him a taste for the traditional Indian dishes he grew up with and a desire to bring those flavors along as he went out into the world. Sara sent him off with a ‘masala box’ of common spices and her own mother’s recipes. When he struggled to get the proportions correct, or found that a dish didn’t quite turn out when he added the spices in a different sequence than his mother and grandmother had, Sara realized that understanding the why of Indian cooking was the secret ingredient that many people are missing when trying to recreate these nuanced dishes.
Sara’s entrepreneurial dreams were born of a desire to help her son provide for himself and connect to his heritage. Those dreams soon grew to encompass her wider circle of friends, family, and finally people all across the country. They are thrilled, Sara says, to be “sharing the richness of Indian culture through our cooking kits and infusing joy and vitality into kitchens across America!”
Culture and community are at the heart of everything Sara and Partha do. “We strongly believe that food embodies culture, and culture is expressed through food.” Sara brought this vision to the very first pilot program of UpStart in 2013, where she crafted her business plan, and she continues to feel supported by the connections she made there. And as their business grows, so do their roots in the community. Working with food charities, they have sponsored more than 100,000 meals and in 2023 they were named, along with a handful of other local businesses, as Brand Ambassadors for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporations (WEDC). Through their involvement with WEDC, WARF, and other local groups, they are creating a worldwide community; promoting understanding of Indian culture and a healthy business atmosphere and community right here in Wisconsin.
Sadly, Sara and Partha lost their son Gautam to cancer in 2022. The work he inspired keeps his memory alive, and Sara says that he continues to be their inspiration as they move forward, expanding on the dream that began in their kitchen over a decade ago and their mission to bring healthy, authentic Indian food to as many families as they can.
There are some exciting developments in the works for Flavor Temptations: new legislation in California provides grants for k-12 schools serving unprocessed, plant-forward and scratch-cooked meals, and Flavor Temptations’ products fit that bill to a T. Sara also attends meetings of a food coalition here in Wisconsin representing school nutrition programs and REAP Food Group. The association’s motto is “Feeding bodies, fueling minds,” and there is currently a bill in legislation to partner with Wisconsin farmers to bring fresh food into schools. “It’s a win-win all around once you go local,” Sara says.
You can find Flavor Temptations products on the shelves at several local grocery stores including Willy Street Co-op and Metcalfe’s Market, you can also order directly from their website www.flavortemptations.com or find their products on Amazon. They are always looking to make connections with other businesses who could make use of their products – cafeterias, grocery store hot bars, meal kit companies – and invite anyone interested in learning more to reach out to them directly.
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