Over 22 million Indians have migrated to different parts of the world, but there's another migration that's taking place and few people have realized just how momentous it is. The mass migration of millions and millions of samosas, kachoris, dosas and idlis - made in India and quick frozen - delivered to your door in California, London or Dubai, almost as fresh as those made by your dear Amma!

Who would have thought that there would be a virtual kitchen in your freezer? It's indeed a Cold Revolution - walk into any Indian grocery store in the United States and you will be amazed by the variety in frozen dinners with everything from gourmet specialties like Paneer Hariyali to Malai Kofta to Uttappam.

Some of the major manufacturers and distributors of frozen Indian food in the United States include Deep Foods, headquartered in New Jersey, House of Spices and Rajbhog Foods in New York, Raja Foods in Chicago, Dishanka Gourmet Imports in Texas and Kostos International in California.

Each is doing its bit in getting frozen ready to eat dinners, ice-creams and snacks to hungry and harried South Asians across America - and some are even winning over converts from the mainstream. And they are certainly ringing it up at the cash register - frozen foods are a cash cow.

Few mainstream customers would go to a supermarket to buy flour to make bread from scratch; in the same way many Indian consumers are skipping the raw material to get the ready-made chappatis and naans because everyone's so time-deprived.
House of Spices is a major distributor of several brand names from India, including products like Vadilal frozen vegetables as well as ready-to-eat dinners like Vadilal's Sarso ka Sag, Bhindi Masala, Dum Alu, Punjabi Chole, Dal Makhani and Navratan Korma. It also imports frozen snacks like samosas and kachoris under its own brand name Lakshmi, and the Lakshmi line is expanding to include more South Indian snacks, because Soni feels there is a big demand from the South Indian community which hasn't been met.

Probably the biggest player in frozen foods is Deep Foods, which actually manufactures most of its frozen items in the United States. Pressed on the magnitude of the demand frozen foods, Deep's Archit Amin says, "You're still going to have more basmati sales than frozen foods, there's no doubt about it. The groceries are still the No. 1 product that people go to these stores for. What we do see a pick up in is in entrees, not as much as we'd like to see, but we do see a lot of potential there."

So now we have the outsourcing of samosas!
He says the products made in their manufacturing facility in India are imported into the United States, but are also produced for consumption in the homeland. We use the same USDA and FDA guidelines since Deep has been in the U.S. business for over 20 years. We use only Bisleri water- bottled spring water in our plant in India and fresh Indian flour. It's been a great experience and the people are simply wonderful there."

Another big player is Raja Foods, based in Skokie, Ill, a suburb of Chicago. The company has been in business since 1992 and imports frozen foods from India under the Swad label. According to Swetal Patel of Raja Foods, Swad has the largest variety of frozen vegetables in the market, especially ethnic products like tindora, papdi lilva, valor papdi, chauri and tandal jo ni bhaji, which is a leafy root vegetables which is a part of traditional Gujarati cuisine. These come fresh from the farms in Gujarat and are much easier to prepare since they are already cleaned and cut.
Says Swetal Patel, "All you need to do is heat your oil, put the vegetables in and ten minutes later, and it's done. For people who are looking to make authentic dishes this is great. Fresh produce may be available here, but only in certain seasons and may be more expensive."

Another example he gives is that of drumsticks, which if fresh, could go for about $4.99 a pound, since they have to be flown in from the Dominican Republic; the frozen drumsticks from India retail from $1.39 to a $1. 99. He says, "The price point is very attractive. There are certain cities were fresh is not so easily accessible and frozen products become a solution."

The owners of Raja Foods also have a chain of Indian grocery stores and five restaurants in Illinois, and the chefs formulate many of the entrees for the frozen line. He says, "If you had the Swad Dal Makhani and restaurant Dal Makhani, you'd probably pick ours over it.

And at $1.99 you can't go wrong - it takes five minutes to make."

Asked to identify the best-selling the products in Chicago, Patel lists the Swad frozen samosas, kachoris and the Asian Indian spring rolls - people tend to stock up on them as Diwali approaches. Currently Raja Foods is making more shelf-stabilized dinners than frozen, but will be adding several new products in a month.

Another player in the frozen food business is Rajbhog, Inc., established in New York, and whose name is synonymous with sweets and snacks. Sachin Mody, one of the owners, says, "For us, the frozen foods was a new line we started about two years ago, but it has significantly increased. The demand is there, basically both husband and wife are working. The younger generation has grown up and they are all working, and even the ones who are married are both working. So for them, this is a fast way to eat."

Rajbhog manufactures about 45 frozen items from matter paneer to Punjabi chole to party samosas, and all their frozen entrees and appetizers are manufactured in New York in an 18,000 square foot factory and are shipped all over the United States.
Modi emphasizes that companies are also doing a lot of volume on raw frozen vegetables from India. "We sell about 16 varieties of frozen vegetables, like cut okra, tindora, papri lilva and blocks of methi and everything is cut and cleaned already." He says the vegetables, immediately after being picked on the farms, are cut and flash frozen.

Undhiyu, a traditional Gujarati item that is an authentic mix of Indian vegetables and many different beans, is one of Rajbhog's dishes. Says Mody, "There are people who like Undhiyu, but their wives don't know how to make it. Our whole concept when we started making frozen food was like bringing mother's food back into your home."
Rajbhog is also marketing another line of frozen foods, Bombay Kitchen, which is geared to the health conscious and mainstream taste. The entrees like baigan bartha and navratan korma are low fat, low sodium and low spice and will be available shortly.

Out in California, Kostos Internat-ional entered the frozen foods arena seven years ago with its Vegis brand of parathas, which until then had only been available in the form of Malaysian parathas. Vegis Homestyle Gourmet Foods include specialized breads like naan, Toast-A-Roti, paratha, chapatti, poori and flaky parathas. While some of the Vegie breads are made in an automated bakery in California, the majority of the products come from India. The lineup includes five types of naan - garlic, onion, Sher -e-Punjab, tandoori and roghani.

This is a truly global world and Pillsbury, the American company, is actually making naans in India, and Kostos International is national distributor for the Pillsbury line. So why is Pillsbury's Doughboy, usually busy with cakes and pastries, making frozen naans and parathas? Says Kostos Vice President Jay Parikh, "Pillsbury has many ethnic lines, and one of them is Indian.

That's more variety than you see in the breadbaskets of many Indian restaurants! Kostos International distributes to 1,300 stores nationally, mostly Indian and Pakistani, and some Middle Eastern stores. Says Parikh: "We have a few mainstream outlets at the moment. Indian foods are not as famous as Chinese and other foods, but are getting known, and the frozen samosas and spring rolls are very popular."

So America is finally waking up to the joy of zapping a microwave button and retrieving sizzling malai koftas in minutes! Why so late in the day in the United States, when the Brits have long made Indian food a national favorite, available in the frozen and chilled sections of mainstream stores like Mark and Spencer's and Selfridges?
"Well the American market is only 30 years old," says Neil Soni. "The English market has been around ever since England occupied India. They've been exposed to the Indian culture so that market is almost a 100 years old. On top of the millions of South Asians in the UK who are eating Indian food consistently, there is a 100 million population where 50 percent of the people are exposed to Indian food. There may be a demographic of 50 million people who like Indian food."

He points out that even in a cosmopolitan city like New York there might be many affluent Americans who don't know about Indian food and don't want to try it because they've never been exposed to it. He says: "I think there's a very big opportunity, but it has to be marketed properly. Right now I find that only the younger, college educated Americans - from the ages of 18 and 25 have the most potential to try Indian food."
Swetal Patel of Raja Foods says of the chilled foods that are such a rage in London: