It’s amazing how a midlife crisis can alter a continent’s eating habits.

Noorudin Jiwani says he was experiencing a midlife crisis five years ago when he and wife Anis decided to pack up and move their family from Ontario to Alberta to start a business, marketing a food product that few North Americans were even familiar with.

But today, the East Indian samosa – a phyllo pastry filled with spiced vegetables, beef or chicken – has cut a huge slice into the North American appetizer market.

And Jiwani, president of Aliya’s Foods Ltd., is making good use of his bachelor of science in math, counting Chef Bombay samosas as they roll off the assembly line at a plant in Sherwood Park.

Dan Riedlhuber, Business Edge
Aliya’s Foods Ltd. president Noorudin Jiwani loves watching his samosas roll off the production line towards a hungry North American market.

Yet, in spite of the resounding success of Aliya’s Foods in becoming North America’s dominant producer of samosas, Jiwani sounds like an entrepreneur whose appetite has only been whetted by the appetizer.

1. Are you from an entrepreneurial family?

“I certainly am. My great grandfather, my grandfather and my father were all in various businesses. My grandfather migrated from India in the early 1900s to Kenya to start a business and the family has been in business since then. My family came to Canada in 1975. I have three brothers and a sister and all of us wanted to go to university in Canada, so my parents also moved to Ontario to be close to us and start a business. I went to McMaster University where I took my bachelor of science in math.”

2. What was your boyhood dream?

“It was totally different from what I’m doing today (laughing). It was to be a doctor. But those are dreams from a time when you don’t know what to expect. It was just something that intrigued me. The human body always intrigued me.”

3. What did you do before you started your own company?

“I worked for a consulting firm in Toronto for 15 years. I was in pension consulting where we did evaluations and did administration systems for clients. In that job, there was a lot of mathematical thinking and analytical thinking, which has helped me in my business.”

4. How did you arrive at the decision to go into business for yourself?

“My wife (Anis) is a dietitian by profession and used to consult to food-manufacturing firms in Ontario. We always wanted to be in our own business. An opportunity came about where we had family here in Alberta and my uncle (Shiraz Jiwani, Noorudin’s partner) wanted to branch out into other businesses. My uncle said, ‘Why don’t we join hands and see what opportunities we can go into?’ And I was at a time of my life where I was about 40 years old and I thought it was time for a change. I came out of my comfort zone, but now I feel I’m back in it after four years in this business.”

5. Of all the products you could have chosen to market, why samosas?

“It’s East Indian food and we are of East Indian origin. When we joined hands with my uncle, we said, ‘Where are our strengths?’ We decided it was in East Indian food. That market had not been exploited. We decided to come to Alberta and give ourselves one year to research the market and, if it didn’t work out, we’d return to our old professions. The samosa recipe was basically my wife’s that she learned from my parents and her parents. She improvised on it to suit the North American taste. My wife is from Uganda. She left during the exodus when Idi Amin threw them out of that country. Her family left with nothing in their pockets and only a suitcase with their clothes. That’s such an emotional thing. It’s quite incredible when you see the parents come to Canada without a penny and all three of their daughters graduated from university. One is a doctor, one is a lawyer and one is a dietitian.”

6. What was your initial investment to start Aliya’s Foods?

“As a joint venture with my uncle, the initial investment was $1 million for equipment and construction. The other advantage of Alberta is the financing help that was available. When you come with a totally new production facility and totally new equipment that had never been tested, the five (big) banks are not going to stand behind you. The AAFRD (Alberta Agriculture, Food & Rural Development) stood behind us to give the guarantee so that the banks would finance our operation. That was one of the advantages of starting the business here. Before we started, we researched both Ontario and Alberta. The economy in Alberta was a lot stronger than in Ontario and my uncle was here and had a huge property where we could build a plant that suited our needs.”

7. How many samosas did you give away in getting the business off the ground?

“We started the business in October (1999) and our first sale was in February (2000), so we’d be talking very, very large numbers – close to a million. It took a lot of patience and persistence. I always remember our first sale (a $65 order with the Edmonton Petroleum Club). After that, I said, ‘Be patient, buddy, it’s going to work.’ And a few months later we were laughing.”

8. How many samosas per day are you producing now?

“We are at the moment producing about 25,000 a day. We are working on other products. They’ve been on the back burner for the last little while. We were hoping to have them out sooner than later. But we didn’t have time because we were so busy with the samosas and a lot of new markets opened up. We hope to launch new products early next year. We are profitable now, and our sales are better than we’d anticipated. We became profitable in the middle of our third year of operation.”

9. What kind of growth potential are you anticipating?

“We’re hoping to grow 10 to 15 per cent per year. Last year, we grew by 45 to 50 per cent and this year we hope to grow by about another 15 per cent. We’ve pretty well covered the Canadian market coast to coast, we are in the West Coast and Northeast regions of the U.S. and we’ve just started to go into the U.S. Midwest. We are breaking ground slowly. We have a lot of requests from Middle Eastern countries for our product. However, we haven’t finished tapping into the North American market yet. I think there’s a lot of opportunity beyond North America. I’m not sure if I will do it, or want to do it. Time will tell.”

10. Why do you think the samosa has caught on so well?

“It’s a different kind of an appetizer and people are tired of having chicken wings as an appetizer. A lot of the market we’re attracting are people who are well travelled, who are looking for new food types. And the East Indian influence is very strong in North America.”

11. Your product is sold in most major supermarkets, but why aren’t you in Wal-Mart?

“We’re talking (to Wal-Mart). And we’re with Sam’s Club (a Wal-Mart chain) so we’ve got a foot in the door. We feel it would be important to be in Wal-Mart because of the great exposure we’d get because of the broad market that shops there. It’s not just the ethnic people going there.”

12. How has the mad-cow scare and related border restrictions on beef exports had an impact on your company?

“We have not been able to export our beef samosas to the U.S because of the regulations against minced beef going there. The cuts of beef are able to cross the border now, but not minced beef. It was not a major part of our business, less than five per cent. The beef samosas are still a big seller in Alberta. We keep hearing things may change (with beef exports), but I guess it’s basically a political situation.”

13. How important is food safety to your organization and what is being done to ensure the safety of your products?

“We’re focused 110 per cent on food safety and that’s why we are certified by HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system). Anything that comes into our plant we can trace back to the last grain of salt. We have a full recall procedure system in place. Food safety is one of the biggest parts of our business. My wife’s strength is in that area and she spends most of her time in food safety. If a truck comes to my back door and does not have the right temperature, my product will not get into the truck.

If the trucking company comes here and says they’re going to turn the refrigeration on now, I tell them that the truck has to reach the right temperature before my product goes into it. We also try to deal with companies that are also HACCP-certified.”

14. Who’s your competition?

“With the samosas, there are localized competitors, but nothing national. But our primary competition is in the appetizer business and we’re always trying to increase our share in that market against the other appetizers, such as chicken wings and spring rolls. The samosa market is growing its market share and that’s predominantly from our Chef Bombay products.”

15. What’s your favourite food?

“Samosas. I eat at least one every day and I make sure she (Anis) eats one in the morning and one in the afternoon to ensure the consistency of the product. And I sure don’t mind eating them. My brother was just here from Toronto and we sat down here and ate the samosas for lunch. We said, ‘Why should we go out when we’ve got all the samosas here?’”

16. What’s the most valuable lesson this business has taught you?

“How to spend your marketing dollars. We may have spent some money in the wrong areas of marketing at times. The food industry is a very funny business. Freezer space is at a premium, so you want to make sure that money spent (on freezer space) is spent in the right places.”

17. What’s your best advice for anyone starting a small business?

“Do the research on what market you’re going after. Make sure that you have a strong business plan and make sure that it’s not just to please the bank. You have to believe in your business plan, and then, as you move along, you have to adjust it.”

18. How many hours per week are you working and what sacrifices have you had to make in building your business?

“I’ve lost track of it. I can’t count them anymore. I travel a lot. When- ever the company has to make a presentation to a client, I will make sure that I am present at that presentation. Nobody else is as emotionally attached to the business as I am. My day never ends. My wife and I are either here or at home. Initially, in the first year and a half, there was a lot of sacrifice because I was spending less time with my children. Since then, I think it (balance) has been pretty good.

What has happened is that my children (two daughters) have learned to appreciate what business is all about. One of my daughters is in university and one is in Grade 11 and they always hear us discussing business at home. They know that there are good days and bad days in business, but we’ve made sure it doesn’t affect their lifestyles. Both of my daughters have also worked in the business, doing every task possible. I would probably want to see one of them join me down the road, but I’m going to leave that option to them.”

19. What’s it like working alongside your wife in business?

“It’s the greatest thing. We get to appreciate each other and the thing we have always maintained from Day 1 is respecting each other’s strengths. I will not interfere with what she is good at. I will ask her advice on those things. And she’ll ask my advice in areas that are my strengths. We basically work as a team. There are ups and downs. Sometimes, we have an argument at work but we try not to take that home. But it has strengthened our relationship. She is my greatest asset. When I’m travelling, she is my point of reference in the office.”

20. How do you define success?

“To me, success in life is having a happy family and a good team of employees who are there with you to work with you as a family. Success is not just money. It’s looking forward to coming to work every day. Last night, I arrived from Vancouver at around 9:30 in the evening. I stopped by the plant to say hello to the guys, talk to them and make sure they were all right. I’m never bored. I’m 46, but I feel like I’m 25.”

IN PROFILE: Noorudin Jiwani
* Title: President/part owner, Aliya’s Foods Ltd.
* Born/raised/age: Kisumu, Kenya/46.
* Education: McMaster University, bachelor of science (mathematics).
* Family: Wife Anis, two children.
* Career: Prior to co-founding Aliya’s Foods in 2000, Jiwani spent 15 years with Actrex Partners, an employee benefit consultant. He was a member of senior management, including a role as a vice-president at the time of his departure.
* Favourite Food: Samosas.
* Pastimes: Fitness, watching his daughter’s rugby matches.

THE COMPANY: Aliya’s Foods Ltd.
* Brass: Noorudin Jiwani, president/part owner; Anis Jiwani, vice-president, operations; Shiraz Jiwani, part owner.
* Profile: Aliya’s Foods manufactures and markets the Chef Bombay brand of samosas, an appetizer of East Indian origin. The samosas are sold throughout North America, primarily in frozen-food sections of most major retail outlets. The company is also preparing to launch other food products under the same brand name.
* Claim to Fame: Aliya’s Foods was honoured in February with an Alberta Business Award of Distinction in the New Venture category.
* Website/E-mail: www.aliyasfoods.com/ chefbombay@aliyasfoods.com
* HQ: Unit 8, 41 Broadway Blvd., Sherwood Park, Alta., T8H 2C1.
* Phone/Fax: 780-467-4600, 866-467-4600/780-416-0462.


(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)