London:
A British company has clinched deals to export Indian spices back to India.
Birmingham-based 'East End Foods' bagged contracts worth around 60,000 pounds during Prime Minister David Cameron's trade mission to India in February this year.
"The fast-growing middle classes in India are prepared to pay for quality and spices, which are unadulterated.
Adulteration of ingredients and food products is a major problem in certain areas of the country. There is also considerable kudos among the better-off in Indian society in buying into 'Brand Britain'," Jason Wouhra, a director of East End Foods, told 'Birmingham Mail'.
"At the moment, we have contracts worth more than 60,000 pounds with shops, hotels and restaurants in places such as Delhi and the Punjab. But we can see a huge market potential to expand massively. This is only the beginning," he said.
Two executives from the company had travelled with Cameron's biggest-ever UK trade delegation to sign the contracts in India.
The British PM has set a target of doubling trade with India by 2015 and has pegged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) such as East End Foods as the key to achieving that growth.
Wouhra, who was recently appointed chairman of the business group Institute of Directors West Midlands, believes innovation can bring the Midlands, and Britain, out of recession.
East End Foods, which supplies 80 per cent of independently owned Indian food shops in Britain and many of the supermarket chains, was set up in Wolverhampton 40 years ago by his family, originally from New Delhi.
The company's main premises are now located in West Bromwich and a cash-and-carry warehouse at Aston Cross in Birmingham.
The company, which sells 1,500 products lines, has an annual turnover of 180 million pounds and employs more than 300 workers.