Meet a Chamber member: Anu Narayan

Hi Anu, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

I’m the small business owner of a gluten free, low carb, low sugar home bakery, Up To Gnu Good, based in Brighton, that I started at the end of 2020. I’m immensely passionate about cooking and baking from scratch, creating delicious, nourishing food that fills you with joy, and thereby helping those living with specific dietary restrictions and requirements

I was born and brought up in Mumbai, India, and then spent several years living and working around the world, before finally finding my new home in Brighton eight years ago.

How did you get started with Up to Gnu Good, and why was it important for you to make low sugar bakes?

I’ve inherited my family’s love for food, and have always been fascinated by the impact it has on our health, energy, and mental well-being. It was around 2016 that I first started examining and understanding the benefits of a diet rich in relatively unprocessed food, low in gluten, sugar and carbohydrates, with a good amount of healthy fats and proteins. I noticed just how much better it made me feel, both physically and mentally.

I experienced (and still do!) first hand how frustrating and disheartening it can be to not have that choice when it came to buying food in grocery stores and shops, and eating out in cafes and restaurants, or celebrating special occasions. This was my main motivation for starting Up To Gnu Good, to create a more inclusive offering for everyone in the realm of food.

Does your other day job, as a geophysicist, help you in the baking process?

Great question, and honestly not something I have ever really thought about! Having said that, I think I am a rather (annoyingly) organised and methodical person by nature, and my day job as a geophysicist taps into my love of all things technical and detail oriented. Baking is mostly equal parts science and creativity, with generous splashes of attention to detail thrown into the mix. Working in the space of baking for specific dietary requirements calls for sizeable amounts of all the above.

The analytical skills that I have learned in my day job have certainly helped me in my baking process, and the tech skills that I have picked up along the way are certainly helping my bookkeeping and managing the website!

How does minimising waste factor into your business model?

I’m a huge advocate of keeping my business as low waste as possible, and it’s an ethic that my family and I have always lived by. We never discard any ingredients or bakes, even when experiments in the kitchen go horribly wrong, and I’m always looking for ways to repurpose a recipe that may not have quite worked as expected – often, this results in an entirely unexpected success!

We buy local produce wherever possible, and never keep excess stock of ingredients with a short shelf life. The majority of the packaging I use is reusable or recyclable, and it is heartening to see that most of our customers want to help minimise waste as well!

How do you find working in a husband and wife team? What do you think the main challenges and benefits are?

I’m incredibly fortunate to have my husband as my Up To Gnu Good partner-in-crime. While I focus on the recipe creation, baking, social media, networking, tech, and the admin, he does most of the remaining behind-the-scenes work, whether it is grocery shopping, collecting deliveries, helping me plan my baking when it all gets a bit too overwhelming, helping set up the market stalls, giving me sound advice, and generally being a very patient listening ear! Working closely with your partner can be difficult if you both share the same space all the time and work on the same things simultaneously, but when the work is clearly divided, it makes the whole process so much smoother and the experience extremely enjoyable.

And a fun question to finish with – if you could only have three apps on your smartphone, what would you pick and why?

Chrome, WhatsApp and Camera. Chrome (or any web browser) because I can literally get to anything there… emails, Google Drive, Google Keep, our website, my recipe book, news, YouTube, social media. WhatsApp so I can stay in touch with my family, and Camera because there is so much beauty to capture in the world, edible and otherwise!

Anu Narayan is Founder of Up To Gnu Good. Find out more on their website here.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk