For years, Sunita Agarwal made sweets and savouries at home for her family. She had been doing it since childhood and often heard the same reaction from people who tasted her food: the flavour reminded them of something that was becoming difficult to find in the market. At 60, that thought became the starting point for a business. “I’m Sunita Agarwal, co-founder of Kitchen & Gupshup,” she said in an Instagram video. “At the age of 60, I decided that the taste of my childhood had somehow been lost. I had always loved making sweets since I was a child.”Sunita said people who tasted her sweets would often tell her, “Wow, what a taste! You don’t get this kind of taste in the market anymore.” Her son, Rajvardhan, felt the same way. The two eventually decided to turn her recipes into a business and started ‘Kitchen & Gupshup’ in 2022.As reported by The Better India, Sunita started the venture as a home kitchen with just four products, besan barfi, gond barfi, masala channa daal and mathris. What began with a small menu has since grown into a business with nearly 3,000 customers.
From family recipes to a business
Sunita had spent much of her life as a homemaker and had always enjoyed preparing sweets and snacks for her family. As reported by The Better India, she sometimes bought sweets from outside but was not always satisfied with the quality, which led her to make them herself. As her children grew older, she had more time to continue cooking for friends and family. People around her liked what she made, and eventually she began wondering whether those recipes could become something more. “Why not make this a business?” she told The Better India. That question became Kitchen & Gupshup.Sunita and Rajvardhan built the business around fresh preparation and traditional flavours. In the Instagram video, Sunita said the platform prepares sweets and savouries fresh, without preservatives, using pure desi ghee and quality ingredients. Her son Rajvardhan also became closely involved in developing the business. He travelled across northern and western India to learn about traditional sweets and to recruit halwais who could join their kitchen. The team now includes halwais from Rajasthan and Haryana.
Keeping old flavours alive
Kitchen & Gupshup moved to a commercial kitchen in 2024 and expanded its menu.
For Sunita, the business is not only about selling sweets. She believes traditional tastes that were once part of everyday family life are slowly disappearing. “Today, people are slowly forgetting the traditional tastes they grew up with. Our aim is to bring back that old, traditional taste and introduce it to the younger generation,” she said in the Instagram video. She also believes food can bring people back to the same table. “We feel that we have been about 80% successful in our effort to bring back those old memories and connect families through food, so that everyone can sit together, talk and enjoy these familiar flavours,” she said. The business has also expanded beyond its original home-kitchen setup. According to The Better India, Kitchen & Gupshup moved to a commercial kitchen in 2024 and expanded its menu. In 2026, it began reaching customers through its website and Amazon, while the family was also planning to enter quick commerce.
She still checks every sweet herself
Even as the business has grown, Sunita remains involved in the kitchen. “I am very organised at heart. I plan ahead,” she says. She plans the work after an order comes in, arranges the raw materials and sets deadlines. Before the products are packed, she personally checks the sweets for quality. She also credits her team for helping maintain the quality of the products. According to The Better India, Kitchen & Gupshup currently has eight people, with four working in operations and marketing and four in the kitchen. The business receives around four to five orders a day and earns about Rs 2-2.5 lakh a month. The family hopes to eventually increase this to Rs 6-7 lakh.
What started at home now has a team behind it
Sunita’s first step into business was also supported by her family. She told The Better India that her husband encouraged her and her children were happy when they learnt that she was starting a business. People also tell Sunita that she is a “change maker”. For her, the change began with something much closer to home. It was the taste of the sweets she had been making since childhood.
