- Ms. Mehreen Fatima revives tradition with natural, chemical-free spices and instant chutney mixes
Interview with Ms. Mehreen Fatima, owner Royol Spices
PAKISTAN & GULF ECONOMIST had a conversation with Ms. Mehreen Fatima, owner Royol Spices, about herself and her entrepreneurial activity. Following are the excerpts of the conversation:
By qualification, I am a clinical psychologist and a researcher. My professional background trained me to observe deeply, ask questions, and search for meaning behind processes. Yet entrepreneurship entered my life not as a planned career choice, but as an emotional return to my roots. Royol Spices was not born merely as a business idea; it emerged from memory, loss, responsibility, and a desire to revive a family craft that once shaped our everyday life.
My grandfather and father began working with spices around 1965. They were not simply selling raw materials they were creating their own recipes, carefully balancing flavors through experience and intuition. As a child, I grew up watching spices being cleaned, dried, blended, and stored. The aroma of those spices was part of our home, and without realizing it, this craft became a quiet part of who I was.
With time, age and health challenges forced my father to step away from the spice business. A few years later, in 2019, he passed away. His departure marked not only a personal loss, but also the pause of a generational journey. For several years, the work that had defined my family remained silent.
Four years after my father’s passing, I traveled to the Gulf. There, I experienced a wide range of spices and masalas consistent in quality, strong in aroma, and refined in presentation. While I appreciated their standard, a powerful realization stayed with me: this art was never foreign to us. We had lived with it. We had grown up with it. That moment planted a question in my mind if others could build global identities around spices, why couldn’t we reclaim our own legacy?
In January 2025, that question turned into action. I launched Royol Spices, not just as a brand, but as a continuation of my father’s and grandfather’s work. Very soon, however, I encountered a critical challenge. Developing my own recipes required ingredients of consistent quality, and sourcing such ingredients locally proved difficult. Most available products were sun-dried, carrying visible variations in color, aroma, texture, and nutritional value.
Coming from a research background, I could not ignore the process behind these inconsistencies. In Pakistan, dehydration is commonly understood as sun drying, yet research showed me a very different reality. Sun drying is slow, weather-dependent, and results in significant nutritional loss. Aroma fades, colors dull, and shelf life remains unpredictable. Hot-air dehydration, on the other hand, completes the same work within hours instead of days. It preserves freshness, aroma, crisp texture, and nutritional value far more effectively, while extending shelf life without the use of chemicals or additives.
When I failed to find ingredients that matched these standards, I chose to learn the process myself. I invested time in understanding hot-air dehydration and eventually developed my own hot-air dehydration unit. Today, Royol Spices is capable of bulk hot-air dehydration a step that remains uncommon in a market still dominated by traditional sun-dried practices.
At present, we produce dehydrated onion in flakes, granules, and powder form; dehydrated garlic as slices, granules, and powder; and dehydrated tomato in slices, granules, and powder. Alongside these, we also process seasonal vegetables using hot-air dehydration, maintaining strict control over quality and consistency.
As this journey progressed, another very personal realization emerged. While working with dehydrated ingredients, I reflected on a common kitchen struggle fresh chutney is difficult to prepare in small quantities, and when made in larger amounts, it often spoils within a day or two. This is a daily frustration that many women silently manage, balancing time, freshness, and waste.
We consciously tried to solve this problem using our dehydrated ingredients. This effort led to the development of our Instant Garlic Chutney Mix and Instant Mint (Podina) Chutney Mix. These mixes are designed to simplify chutney preparation, allowing fresh-tasting chutney to be made quickly, without lengthy preparation, stress, or wastage.
All Royol Spices products are natural, chemical-free, and created with care, research, and respect for tradition. As a psychologist and researcher, I continuously observe consumer behavior, trust, and quality perception, ensuring that every product reflects both scientific understanding and generational experience.
Royol Spices is more than a brand to me. It is a living story a journey from heritage to entrepreneurship, rooted in 1965 and evolving into a renewed identity in 2025, with a vision to represent Pakistan’s flavors through integrity, innovation, and authenticity.