Karthick Shanmuga Sundaram, the founder of Gusteau Foods, talks about his entry into the food industry and supplying to the B2B sector.
Calling his B2B venture a ‘COVID start-up’, Karthick explains how he switched careers from a corporate R&D job to establishing Gusteau Foods. He holds an MTech in Packaging Technology from the Indian Institute of Packaging, Mumbai. He has work experience in multiple companies, including a start-up in Cochin, Synthite, where he worked for 7 years, till he quit in 2021. From 2020 to 2021, he worked from home, but wasn’t satisfied with how much free time he had on hand.
“I lived with my parents, my two brothers and their families. We would talk about anything but COVID, because that would only bring negative energy. We’d discuss food and what new dishes we could try. My mom loves to bake; she’s really good at it. I didn’t like the fact that her cookies and cupcakes were all brown. I wanted some colour,” he laughs. “We began extracting green from spinach, orange from carrots, and pink from beetroot—all at home. When we saw that these were working well, I realised they had potential in the market. 99% of food colours in India are synthetic. I wanted to fill that gap by introducing plant-based food colours.”
Karthick read up on literature surrounding the food colour market and decided to take this up as a stepping stone into the industry. “Even though it is a slow growth field, it has great potential. I wasn’t able to stabilise the colours by myself at home. I needed a lab and a proper R&D setup. I contacted CFTRI in Mysuru for guidance on the product formulation. With their help, we came up with natural additives and preservatives like rosemary essential oil to stabilise the colours.”
The name Gusteau, he chuckles, was inspired by the movie Ratatouille. His takeaway from the movie? Anyone can cook; knowledge doesn’t matter, only passion matters. Gusteau expanded to spice mix pastes in January 2022 when they found out that most restaurants in Chennai were missing their home-bound chefs, giving the dishes a distinct, inconsistent taste.
“My mom and grandmother are pros in Chettinad cuisine and traditional dishes, so I asked them for their secret recipes for Chettinad curry, chukka, saalna, fish curry, Dindigul-style biryani. We took these tried-and-tested home recipes and adapted them commercially. We needed a suitable technique to make them without synthetic preservatives. Our grandmother’s preservation techniques were perfect—salt, acid, and oil. After months of trials, we had a range of gravies that had a four-month shelf life. We picked the most commonly consumed dishes and developed spice pastes to cater to a wide range of palates.”
Gusteau Foods was incubated by IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, and has received the Innovation Voucher Program from the Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Council of Tamil Nadu.
Karthick gives a walkthrough of making a food colour. For green, the spinach leaves are boiled, coarsely crushed, then filtered. Science works its magic, extracting chlorophyll, and then rosemary oil is added, which is a natural antioxidant. This results in a highly pigmented product. They currently work in small batches of 5-10 kilograms. The year 2024 saw a lot of cases filed against synthetic food colours, and Gusteau Foods is trying to buck that trend.
They use a technology called ‘cook-chill’, something that isn’t used in India at the moment. This helps in arresting potential bacteria growth, retaining nutritional values, and preventing spoilage, all without preservatives. Their labels read ‘No Preservatives. No Additives. No Retort.’, referring to a common process of cooking.
When asked about balancing traditional recipes and standing out in a world of trends and global cuisine, Karthick passionately clarifies, “To be frank, 80% of the population loves the traditional flavour profile. You can have pizzas, burgers, or French fries, but having a parotta with Chettinad chicken just hits different. Traditional restaurants are on the rise, promoting authenticity and simple and hearty no-fuss meals.”
One of the biggest challenges they faced as a company was constantly hearing how this wouldn’t work out. “Everyone said if I wanted to start a business, I need to make money out of it. I countered their argument by saying money creation is a part of business, it is not the key scope. My two main reasons for starting Gusteau were self-satisfaction and creating a social impact, no matter how small. People said formulating plant-based food colours was a waste of time, no one has baked goods every day, why does it matter? My thought process was different. Everyone has different immunity levels and is affected differently by specific ingredients. Think of the kids, wouldn’t you prefer they have a better alternative to what exists now?”
Karthick is working towards a less wasteful, better future. The company uses post-harvest produce, or fruits, vegetables, and flowers that are slightly damaged or unsold, to extract colours. “We pay 80% of the original price to get the produce; we get carrots, marigold flowers, turmeric root. This way, the farmers get paid for what would normally be dumped. I never take the farmers’ contribution for granted. They supported us when we bought 1 kg, and now they support us when we buy 300. We’re trying to create a circular economy. Everything we use, we buy from farmers. We also have an all-women team to handle and process the produce. Who better than moms to perform a quality check? If they think something is unusable in the products, they make the most of that as well. They use onions or garlic to make small batches of pickles for in-house consumption,” Karthick shares.
On the topic of future plans and hopes for Gusteau Foods, Karthick says, “Our dream is to be the leading brand for natural food colours in India. We are the first brand in the country to be developing a natural red colour using seaweed. We want to prove to people that it is possible and we have done it. I want us to be known as a chemical-free B2B food ingredient solution brand. I want Gusteau to build that kind of trust. I’m aware that it will take time, and I’m fine with that. I will spend as long as it takes to release the most perfect version of these products. I don’t want anyone to accuse me of making false claims about my formulation, so I patiently wait till I get the necessary approvals and licenses.”
In July 2025, on occasion of World Environment Day, they were felicitated by the Governor of Tamil Nadu in the Social Impact Agri-Tech category. Karthick calls this one of the proudest moments in his journey so far, on par with awareness campaigns at SRM and Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa Fisheries University. “We were blown away by the students’ participation. They were interacting with us, no one seemed bored, no one slept during the lecture; that was a big win,” he laughs. “We also hold sessions in schools, and the kids sometimes ask us about ingredients and how to be more aware. It felt amazing that 5–10-year-olds were so interested in what we were saying.”
Karthick concludes by describing his motivation and what solidified his determination to do this, “The first thing is wanting to make my parents proud. I want to improve myself and never look back. My father always says, ‘When a situation doesn’t favour you, think of the best way to go forward. Never settle.’ The second thing is I want to sleep with the satisfaction of having done something good.”
