King of Spice

Jason Wouhra, Director at East End Foods, employed a unique strategy to turna thriving family spice business into a £1 bn global corporate organisation, with a £ 200m-turnover. His fairy tale story from a small family corner shop business to UK’s leading supplier of spices. The success of their 40-year-old company, is soley due to the philosophy used by its founders, the Wouhra brothers, who only source the best raw materials, and maintain total control of the production process from start to finish.

In May 2006, 100-year-old HP Sauce, owned by Heinz, announced that their iconic factory at Ashton Cross was to close, with a loss of 125 jobs. East End Foods found the gap in the market to cater for the mushrooming Asian community. Wouhra brothers Trilok, Tony Deep, jas, David and Don opened a small store in Wolverhampton stocking raw ingredients and dried goods.

East End Foods which employs 400 people across Midlands, expanded into Birmingham with a cash-and-carry in Highgate, acting as a hub for independent retailers, family owned stores and Indian restaurants. It now not only produces its own spices in the UK but also owns one of the biggest rice mills in Europe based in West Bromwich. Jason’s personal vision for East End Foods is to make it a global brand.

“ All of our processing of spices, lentils, milling of rice and flour are done at West Bromwich and supply around 65 per cent of the Asian food industry in UK, including Tesco, Waitrose and Asda.