Producer Spotlight: Sherpa Foods

Food Connects is delighted to introduce one of our newest producers, Sherpa Foods. Founded in 2015 with the mission of bringing traditional Nepalese delicacies to its customers, Sherpa Foods provides delicious flavors you won’t want to miss. Sherpa Foods uses local, fresh, and natural ingredients in their prepared foods, showing their commitment to quality. We were able to chat with Nurbu Sherpa about the company and their outstanding products.

Can you share a little about Sherpa Foods and how you started?

My wife and I were living in NYC. I was working at Macy's as a business manager and my wife worked at JFK airport cargo division. Our parents were already living in Vermont and we used to visit them at least once a year. We always thought Vermont was a great place to live due to its environment, people, and laid-back nature compared to NYC. Once we had our son, our parents wanted their grandson near them. So we were asking them to move to NYC and they were trying to get us to move to Vermont. After many back-and-forths, we decided that Vermont would be a great place to raise a family. So, before we moved to VT, we came up to see what we could do here once we moved here.

I had always wanted to start my own business even when I was going to college at the University of Texas. So, I felt like this was a blessing in disguise. When we came here to look around we saw an opportunity in the food supply industry. There were not a lot of ethnic food options in stores like in big cities in NYC, Dallas, etc. There was just 1 Nepalese restaurant but nothing in retail stores. Most people usually think about opening a restaurant but I wanted to try something different. So, I thought maybe we can combine my family's delicious cooking and my business background and start a Nepalese food supply startup. There were no businesses that supplied Nepalese food to retail stores so we became the first company to do so in the U.S.

Some of our readers might not know a lot about Nepalese foods, could you share some information about it, its highlights, and its flavors?

Nepal has a very diverse culture, tradition, food, etc. Nepal's national foods are rice and lentils but the unofficial and the most popular food is momo. If you ask any Nepalese what their favorite food is, the majority will say “momo.” There is this joke that there are more momo restaurants in Kathmandu (capital of Nepal) than McDonald's and Starbucks combined in NYC. Nepalese food has a lot of flavor as most of the Nepalese food consists of turmeric, coriander, ginger, garlic, curry powder, and other spices.

What makes your products unique?

Momos are fairly new products in the US. It is the Nepalese version of dumplings. Our ingredients make it and give a unique taste than other dumplings from other cultures.

What is one of your favorite products (we know it's hard to choose)?

Vegan momo and beef momo.

Why is selling locally and the local food movement important to you?

The local food movement is very important to us as it helps our local farmers, producers, and local economy.

How does working with Food Connects help your business?

Food Connects has been a tremendous help in expanding our market and introducing our products to stores which would have been impossible for us to do on our own.

I know that right now you don't sell in bulk, but we would love to know your experience with working with institutional buyers (like schools and hospitals).

We actually used to sell our products in bulk by the pound to City Market, Healthy Living, and other stores for their hot bars. But after the pandemic, stores closed their hot bars and stopped supplying bulk products for the time being. We are hoping to restart selling bulk again soon.

Any events coming up or fun facts about your business?

We are hoping to start our own brick and mortar cafe that is right next to our production facility. It has been ready since last July but due to shortage of labor we have not been able to open the cafe yet.

Anything else you would like me to feature? Anything that you are doing to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic?

We are not allowing anyone to come into our production facility except for USDA inspectors with masks. All the delivery drop offs and pickups are done curbside only at the time being.