Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

My wife's last job was at a factory that produced ice cream, and I was astounded to learn all the stuff that goes into quality control and keeping the food safe to eat. It's actually made me switch my cat food from those sort of 100% organic, high quality things to more mainstream brands, since I think what's being produced is less important than how it's produced, and I tend to trust larger factories by known quantities a little more.

Can you detail a little more your industrial process? The home page says "We make everything from scratch in our Seattle kitchen using only locally sourced ingredients + fresh vegetables" which sounds nice at first, but actually kind of creeps me out a little bit. I assume you have random FDA inspections and the like? Precautions to manage listeria, e. coli? A "locally sourced" supply chain with known quality controls, etc?

Also, is there a detailed ingredient list somewhere? My wife is allergic to chickpeas and lentils, which unfortunately makes eating Indian food very difficult for us, as much as I love it! I see lentils explicitly in some of the items, but others don't mention either, but that doesn't mean it's not used, e.g., in the flour or something.

If more people affirm that a given recipe is the most desirable, it would be completely ridiculous to impose a lesser recipe upon the menu, if it sells poorly.

I can easily prepare low sodium pretzels, and try to sell them at the county fair, but what good would that do, if every passer by takes one look at my pretzels and asks, “Where’s the salt?”

Then I’m selling maybe 90% fewer pretzels, but wow! Look at the complements I get from those one or two people who appreciate the effort, but still don’t necessarily buy anything.

If three or four people out of one hundred are apt to complain about a detail like sodium, that the rest happily ignore, then keep the preferred recipe, and offer a separate low-sodium menu, optionally.