Shelly Nooruzzaman is an entrepreneur and co-founder of BANG! Curry, a Brick Lane-inspired meal range that has become a huge hit in the UK.
The best-selling curry range on Amazon, BANG! Curry has sold over 750,000 kits in its first five years, has received millions of likes and views on social media and has recently launched in Waitrose stores nationwide – the brand’s first major retail offering.
Each kit contains 100% natural ingredients and comes in a cardboard bag containing the appropriate spice blend, base blend and dry ingredients. To simplify the cooking process, each kit follows the same three-step process of “prepare, season, cook”. Packed with recipe ideas and tips on how to empower consumers to make their dish their own, Bang! Carrie Giving home chefs the confidence to prepare fresh, Brick Lane-inspired meals in their kitchens.
The range includes sets for making authentic curries such as korma, jalfrezi, tikka, dal and bhona, as well as sets for making delicious side dishes including bhajis, samosas and pakoras.
What is the inspiration behind BANG!Curry?
Growing up in London’s Brick Lane, in the heart of the Bangladeshi community, I spent my childhood surrounded by food. Whether at home with my mother who would spend hours playing in the kitchen, transforming the simplest ingredients into something truly special, or in my community, eating at the curry houses that lined Brick Lane where my father was friends with all the restaurateurs.
As I grew older and started cooking for myself, I became frustrated with the poor quality of products available to consumers. I felt they were being really badly served and deserved something much better. In the UK, curry is a very popular dish and consumers are real curry connoisseurs, yet pouring curry from a jar has become the norm.
I wanted to recreate the curry my mother used to make, but in an easy way and show that it doesn’t take a lot of effort to achieve authentic dishes as well as the real feeling of fun while doing it.
As much as I love the way my mom puts time and love into her food, that’s not the reality for many families. Life is busier these days, and most people don’t have the time to spend hours cooking.
Our BANG! Curry Kits contain the right spice blend, base blend and dry ingredients, taking the intricate work out of curry and leaving customers to follow simple three-step instructions to create amazing dishes at home from scratch.
Who do you admire?
My mother must be the reason. She is a strong, intelligent woman. She went through a lot of hardships when she moved from a comfortable life in Bangladesh to England in the 1970s. It wasn’t easy for the faint of heart, but she changed her destiny through hard work and determination. She is still an absolute force today, and I feel lucky to have been her role model throughout my life.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
Although the road hasn’t always been smooth, we are a product of what we’ve been through, so I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s shaped me into who I am today.
Honestly, I never would have imagined that I would do this – as a young girl, I was very out of touch with tradition, so there was no way I would start a curry-related cooking business. But life is strange, and somehow you end up exactly where you are supposed to be.
What defines your approach to business?
It still feels weird to think of myself as a business owner. It’s been a long road to get here and it happened quite organically, so I never set any intentions about how I wanted to do business; it just evolved along the way.
Being in the food industry, the quality of the product can make or break your success. My focus has always been on creating the best possible products and while we have built a successful brand in terms of sales and menus, I have never and will never give up on this. We differentiate our products by responding to customer feedback. We are always working to improve and I don’t think I will ever stop believing that there is room for improvement. This has made us stand out from the crowd in terms of taste, quality and final product.
What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out?
Test the validity of your idea because you’ll need to put every ounce of energy into your vision. I did exactly the same thing in the early days of BANG! Curry. I needed to prove that the concept worked and that people were interested in making Indian dishes in their own kitchens, so I ran group cooking classes from my home. They were really popular and confirmed that there would be demand, so I then poured all the profits from the classes into product development and testing them at farmers markets to get customer feedback to help improve the recipes. Business doesn’t happen overnight; you need to be flexible and it can be tough.
