Creative journey of a culinary artist :

A Food Stylist

It’s been 10 years that I have working in the industry as a Food stylist
(The term Food stylist is relatively new for people outside our realm of
work)Explained in simpler terms "A food stylist is like a cosmetic
surgeon for food.He/she beautifies food to create a visual hook for
consumers to influence their purchase decision of a given brand of
food".A big thanks to all the advertising agencies(special mention to Leo
Burnett and Lowe Lintas) and my clients
Tata,HUL,Britannia,Patanjali,ITC,Adani Wilmar,Amul,Mother
dairy,Parle,Future group who entrusted me with their work.

I.The advent of foodstyling industry in India

The foodstyling profession got introduced in India due to a lot of global

changes that impacted the Indian market.India over last 2 decades saw
changes in the food consumption pattern due to its impressive economic
growth,increase in disposable income and globalization.Data reveals that
today 40% of a households income in India is being spent on food
alone.These changes caused influx of many new food brands in the Indian
market and intensified competition amongst them.Supermarkets started to
mushroom in India to provide more visibility and space to ever increasing
food brands as kirana stores were unable to cope with the space challenge.
(Global giants like Walmart have 21 stores across India today)

These modern supermarket became a battlefield of sensory competition for

the consumer’s attention. Visual signage in form of free-standing
advertisements, digital screens, placards, and packaging; olfactory signals in
form of scents; and auditory signals in form of announcements, interactive
digital displays and music, became a part of the information clutter in retail
environment. It is increasingly difficult to break through the supermarket
clutter and to gain consumers attention.(Source) .Studies reveal that a
consumers spends 7 seconds on an average before he/she makes a decision
to purchase a given brand of food in a supermarket.
Keeping that 7 second timeframe in mind ,food brands then started making
their packaging more enticing.In their endeavor these food brands started to
look for food professionals who could reproduce beautiful images of their
food brands for packaging.This need to have an attractive image of food
gave birth to a new brand of professionals called the "Food stylist -the
culinary and aesthetic experts"

II.My introduction to FoodStyling

I believe my hearts inner desire took me to this profession of a Food Stylist.
Prior to my styling career I was working as a qualitative researcher out of
Mumbai.I had a regular job and lived a simple life where going to work
each day,coming back watching TV and cooking were my daily activities.I
even bagged a job my dream research company, during my last year as a
Qualitative researcher and was doing well.Everything seemed perfect!! But
as time went by some dissatisfaction started to bubble up inside me.I started
feeling the need to take up a vocation that I felt would drive me the next 30
years.Research had become a job over 4 years and I felt my passion drain
out of it.Ultimately I stood by my gut feel,I quit my dream job in research
and took a 7 month sabbatical to understand what I would want to do next.It
was during those moments of introspection that I discovered foodstyling as
a career on Google:-)
My journey as a food stylist has been one of hard
work,dedication,uncertainty,accolades and even brickbats.Each of them has
made me grow and polish my craft and continues to do so.At this juncture
of my life when I am comfortably settled in my profession,I thought of
penning down my journey.I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I
enjoyed writing it.

Ambassador taxi on a Kolkata street

III.Early childhood days and interaction with food in Kolkata(A city of

art and culture)
I was born in a joint Marwari household of 21 members in Kolkata in the
80’s.It was a time when mobiles,hypermarkets and online magazines had
still not forayed into our country.We relied on landline with massive dials
and newspapers as our source of information.An area’s local market area
was the place where one would get introduced to all household goods and in
one such place called CA market next to our house I smelt my first
fish,purchased my first fruit and bought my first set of ingredients for
baking a cake.

A roadside tea stall of Kolkata

A local fish seller in Kolkata

I lived in a joint family of 21 people and our house was a place of constant
activity of all kinds.Painting,reading and savoring food were some things I
loved as a kid.Food was the heart of our family life and home always
echoed with sounds of pounding,grinding and frying.Neighbors and
relatives loved eating at our place and we felt extremely joyful in hosting
them.I still have vivid memories of my mom cooking all day in the kitchen
for us.Her love for cooking was inspirational.I am sure my love for cooking
stemmed from that place.I liked reading about food and looking at mouth
watering images of the same.Apart from cooking I loved painting and
reading books in my childhood.

My art school Rekha Chitram

IV. My first inspiration in foodstyling

In those days Telegraph newspaper was a popular tabloid in Kolkata. On

Sundays it came with a special lifestyle magazine called Graphiti. Though
the magazine spoke about a lot of things my most cherished column there
was that of food written by Chef Jiggs Kalra.Notable was his method cum
clarity of penning recipes and opulence of presenting food.Never before I
had seen food be treated that way.Enticed by it I started tearing his recipes
up from Graphiti /writing them in my notebook(my family completely
disliked my habit of tearing books)

A recipe by Chef Jiggs Kalra in the past

My favorite home dishes were-the creamy tomato soup with buttery

croutons,the rustic home pizza with loads of Amul cheese grated over it and
not to forget the Marwari dal,rice and sweet pumpkin curry.As my passion
for food grew I started taking food lessons from home chefs in
Kolkata(Mrs.Alim/Niloo bakshi/Jagruti Desai).

To practise my cooking I would use the family kitchen at night when all the
people at home(21 of them) were asleep.By the time I was 17 years old I
started to teach women in my area how to cook and garnish food.When I
look back the first 18 years of my life were spent completing education and
learning about food and appreciating art and yes not to forget eating…

My teenage picture
 Grateful to my first cooking Teacher.Mrs Alim

My 2nd cooking teacher-Thank you Ms Jagruti Desai

V. My days in Qualitative research and accidental discovery of
Foodstyling profession

I completed schooling and college in Kolkata and came to Mumbai for a

job.I found my first break at work as a Qualitative researcher with TNS and
my research career took off in March 2004.Over the next 3 years I worked
with TNS,GFk Mode,Quantum,R K Swamy as a qualitative
researcher.Those days in research gave me a lot of exposure to food brands
and my learning curve rose.Life went by till 2007 but somewhere down the
line I felt I was not doing what my heart desired.I quit research and spent
few months trying to understand what next to do in life.The answer came
from the most unlikely place-GOOGLE!!! I had been looking for
professions that combine food and art and my search landed me a word
called ‘FOODSTYLING’ I felt I had landed on Mars!!
VI. Days of education and apprenticeship in foodstyling
You would agree that life in Mars for an Earth bound person won’t be easy
and so was the case with me when I decided to get into foodstyling.I loved
what visuals I saw of Foodstyling but I wondered how would I ever get to
that.I used the cold calling practices that research had taught me and
checked if any of the Foodstylist wanted an assistant.Unable to find the
position of an assistant I started to look for work as a kitchen intern.I
pursued.By luck I landed a job as an apprentice in a chefs kitchen who was
also a foodstylist and started to understand how a kitchen functioned.

One day the chef did not have an assistant on his job to help him style food
and thus I got my first chance to assist him.I did well and thus got chances
to do work with him ongoingly for 2 years.I capitalized those 2 years to
even study about food at Sophia’s and Dadar IHM,Le Cordon
Bleu,Bangkok.The more information I was trying to soak in the more came
my way.By the mid of 2010 I had branched out on my own.
Next 2 years I completed my studies at Le Cordon Bleu and worked across
restaurants in India and overseas.In 2013 I joined a Swiss company as their
Boulangerie expert and conducted bread training across India and
simultaneously kept styling food.A budding Food stylist.

I went to a floral school and did a diploma in floral designing since I felt
food and flowers complimented each other..Table settings with floral
arrangements ,bring another aesthetic dimension to the tablescape
Foodstyling.
Foodstyling and Floral styling for Hotstar app featuring M.S Dhoni
VII. Learning to fly on my own

By 2014 I quit my job and decided to do foodstyling full time.I was unsure
how things would be but I was determined to break into the profession and
create a place for myself.

Driven by this faith I started picking up whatever campaigns came my way

and doing my best in each one of them.Every assignment came with its
challenges and learning.Some left me ecstatic while others pulled my
confidence down.During that time my friends and Spiritual guides were
very helpful in making me surge ahead and put in my efforts.As years
passed by the number of campaigns I did grew and my craft got more
polished.I was lucky to be a ...to continue reading click here.