About Us

What we do

The Authentic Food Co. is a leading provider of frozen world food solutions across the UK and European foodservice and retail sectors. We create and deliver food with a difference, from authentic ready-meals to handmade snacks and accompaniments. Our focus is on a respect for real recipes from around the globe, and our chefs use authentic home-style cooking processes that we replicate in specialist production kitchens to deliver great-tasting products. Working in partnership with customers we create bespoke product and range solutions to satisfy the growing consumer demand for convenient, international taste. We like to keep things simple and as we grow and evolve as a business we maintain that the foundations of our success are great people, great products and great partners.

How it started

We came from humble beginnings, but we’ve never been short of big ideas. Kamal Basran founded the business from her kitchen in 1985 with a simple vision: to share a passion for authentic Indian food with the people of the UK, at a time when Indian food was in its infancy. At that time, we only had one product, an authentic Indian vegetable samosa, which is still handmade today in our kitchens in Manchester. Kamal risked all based on her belief in a great idea and a fantastic product, and her entrepreneurial spirit and drive to create great products is still very much alive and kicking at Authentic today.

As we have grown we have done things differently and maintained a relentless focus on the authenticity and quality of our products. Over the years we have built our team and honed our skills and now offer a broad range of products from all corners of the globe. The Authentic Food Co. remains a 100% family-owned business and has been led by Kamal’s son Nik since 2007.

Authentic today

“When I took over the business we had the foundations of something great. At the heart of the business were the building blocks of great people, great products and great partners which I always felt were the key pillars to our success. As a second generation family business leader part of my role has been to maintain what made the company a success in the first place and try and add to that, to ensure our business remains competitive and relevant in an ever changing world. My job is to attract the best talent, bring the vision of the business to life and get the best out of the fantastic people we have in the organisation. Although our business has grown our philosophy remains the same and our simple mission is ‘to make the world smaller through taste”.  Nik Basran

Successes

Our premium Chicken Makhani Masala was runner up at the 2015 Q Awards.
Recognition of our successful six-month implementation of TROPOS in Dundalk
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