Founder Feature: Chef V of Alchemy of Food
Chef V (Vasisht Ramasubramanian), founder of Alchemy of Food, explains how losing his sense of taste and smell to COVID-19 led him to create a clean-label sauce brand using real ingredients like Tennessee honey and Carolina spices. He details the transition from restaurant operations to CPG, highlighting the shift from sourcing small quantities to buying 55,000 pounds of honey and the scientific rigor required for pH levels and refractor readings. Chef V discusses validating product-market fit by selling at five farmers markets a week in summer 2025, his selection for Sprouts' innovation set, and the challenges of scaling production with co-packers while maintaining quality.