Rajbhog Sweets, Deep Foods come together for a memorable event.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: Rajbhog Sweets and Deep Foods, two of the top companies in America specializing in packaged Indian food, will distribute 20,000 packets of food each, outside Madison Square Garden (MSG) in Manhattan on September 28th, handing it out to people who stream out of the venue after attending the public reception for the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
The rules of MSG don’t allow food to be handed inside the venue. Four large trucks will be stationed at streets outside, with workers and volunteers positioned on seventh and eighth avenues, handing over the packets, even to people passing by, if they want to partake of an Indian snack, that is.
The Rajbhog packet will comprise of a hot mixture, given the apt name ‘Modi Mix’, along with a barfi. The Deep food packet will comprise of bhel. A source, who wished to remain unidentified, told The American Bazaar that the food items could change, however, and additional items may be also packaged. The price of each food packet was not revealed by the source, who does not work for either of the two companies.
The unique food distribution, on the lines of the festival Diwali, and also often seen at victory rallies in India post-elections, is perhaps the largest such exercise held on a single day at a venue in New York City, discounting shelters and food banks – and even there it would be hard to match the numbers.
For Rajbhog Sweets, the exercise is not new though. Last November, Arvind Patel, the owner of Rajbhog Sweets, located in Jersey City, New Jersey, had promised to distribute 10 lakh packets of a namkeen mixture called ‘Modi Magic’ till the general elections in India, held earlier this year. That idea itself emanated from a distribution strategy of 11 pedas for Modi’s 11th year as chief minister of Gujarat, in 2012.
Deep Foods, Inc. was started by a housewife called Bhagwati Amin, in 1977.