The brainchild was that of Diana Persaud, who needed a job to occupy her time, but could not find one that fits into her schedule as a wife and mother of two.
Like most housewives, part of her duties entailed her having to prepare lunch for her husband to take to work. In order to make the cooking process shorter in the mornings, she had to begin preparing meals the night before.
“My husband had to leave for work at 6:15 am just to beat the traffic so that he can be on time. This forced me to pre-prepare or cut all fresh vegetables in the evening or sometimes days before, and leave it in the refrigerator so that the cooking time becomes shorter in the mornings,” she told this magazine.
Persaud added that she realized that freshly cut vegetables, “once properly cut, washed and refrigerated, remained in their original state without spoiling [for] days after cutting.”
She eventually started to monitor daily the shelf life of the individual vegetables and herbs to see how long they took to change their original state while refrigerated. “To my surprise, the items lasted for approximately five days”, she added.
As such, after her routine cutting of the vegetables and being unable to secure a suitable job, her husband joked that, “Since you’re good at cutting vegetables to make your life easy, why don’t you just make more people’s lives easy by cutting vegetables for them?”
This was taken a bit more seriously than expected.
“It took about nine months of ground work and local research before the first package of Arya Fresh Cut – Farm Fresh, Healthy Living produce was produced,” Persaud stated.
Persaud said that her husband Aditya, who is a qualified and experienced agronomist, used his technical skills and experience to guide her along the entire process of setting up the new business.
He told this magazine, “We’ve seen how fresh veggies are being handled, and as a professional who is trained in agriculture and food safety, it was our idea to package fresh wholesome safe vegetables for consumers.”
The name Arya, which means ‘Noble’, was chosen to brand the idea.
Asked about feedback on her new product line which has been on shelves for over a month, Persaud pointed out that, “the idea was well received and supported by many, including leading supermarket owners who have all agreed to stock the produce in their supermarkets.”
Additionally, consumers have also embraced the idea, which is seen in daily purchases at supermarkets.
The new product line includes: a mixture of cut vegetables for the preparation of chowmein and fried rice, peeled cassava, ochro, chopped cabbage, tomatoes, oregano and thyme, peeled and chopped pumpkin, curry leaves and mint leaves, among many others.
Soon to be added to the Arya’s Fresh Cut line are kale, cilantro and vegetable salad mix.
The packaged vegetables last a maximum of six to seven days and are taken off the shelves and replenished with fresh vegetables for sale after their shelf life have expired.
She also noted that the product is geared towards allowing parents to spend time with their family members/children by making their time in the kitchen shorter.
Arya’s Fresh Cuts uses only locally grown vegetables which proprietors also believe provides an avenue for job creation along the production chain.
