How Zing’s Pantry Shortcuts turned a pandemic project into a zesty business
When COVID hit, Jannine Rane and her partner Anush Sachdeva were working busy jobs in Toronto’s tech and finance industries. “At the end of a workday, we’d look at each other and say, 'What’s for dinner?’” Rane recalls. “That would cause friction and an argument about who’s making it and what we were going to eat that night.”
Rane and Sachdeva began thinking about how much they loved their city’s diverse food and how restaurants were able to make delicious meals quickly. They realized complex flavours were achieved in the form of seasonings and sauces to deliver a lot of flavour in little time. “The secret sauce is really the secret sauce,” says Rane.
In the summer of 2020, the duo brought their chef friend, Kiran Singh, on board to help develop “flavour short-cut” sauces and seasonings inspired by the many global communities that have made their home in Canada. First came their Hakka-ish Chili Crisp. It was inspired by Toronto’s Indo-Hakka Chinese diaspora—communities of Hakka Chinese descent who migrated to India and later to Canada—whose cuisine blends Chinese techniques with Indian spices and heat. It went through 10 different iterations before they settled on the perfect recipe. They also created a second sauce, the Mogambo Roasted Garlic Condiment, which was inspired by Indian and North American flavours. It was made using French culinary techniques and was born out of Rane’s displeasure with chopping garlic. There was also a line of three seasonings: the Zesti Jerk Seasoning, Smoki Garam Masala and Ooomami Savoury Seasoning Salt.
The company, named Zing Pantry Shortcuts, first launched in Oct. 2020, selling direct to consumers through e-commerce. Zing quickly sold out of some products, boosted by positive press coverage. “That helped give us the confidence that it is something that people might want, and it’s worth investing in,” Rane explains.
In the spring of 2021, Rane began exploring retail partnerships with independent shops in Toronto, including the Dark Horse Espresso Bar chain and Sanagan’s Meat Locker. “We were really moving through word-of-mouth,” explains Rane. “Customers were recommending us to their local retailers.” By the end of 2021, the company had about 50 retailers on board, mostly in Ontario, with a few spots across the country and in the United States. That year, Zing also added more sauces and seasonings to its lineup, including Buzz Hot Honey, which was developed with bestselling cookbook author and executive chef Christine Flynn. It was the first in a series of sauces co-developed with Canadian chefs and food personalities.
Sachdeva and Rane’s background in tech helped form the way the company grew; for example, the creation of their public test kitchen. “It’s a group of real consumers and tastemakers, everyone from food journalists to buyers to Michelin star chefs that will try product prototypes, so to speak, and provide feedback on what’s working and what’s not,” Rane explains. “We are very methodical—we like to make small bets, fail fast and grow from there. That iterative approach has been really the DNA of how we’ve operated from day one.”
In 2022, Zing got its first “yes” from a major grocery chain—Whole Foods Market Canada—launching in all its Ontario stores. “They really gave us our first big break and their stamp of approval,” Rane says. “That opened the door to a lot of opportunities for us.” One of those opportunities was connecting with a national food distribution company, Jonluca Neal.
By the summer of 2023, Rane quit her tech job to run Zing full time. “We had enough signs and signals from sales and from the community to show me that we had done enough to take the leap,” she explains. The year continued to be a great one for Zing, with its product launching in a few more Ontario grocers including 24 Fortinos stores and nine Goodness Me! locations. Then, in June 2024, they added 48 Farm Boy locations in Ontario and 14 IGA and Fresh St. Market stores in B.C., and Alberta. This was followed by Healthy Planet locations in Ontario in Nov. 2024 and most Metro Ontario locations in May 2025. And there’s more to look forward to in 2026, as they’ll expand their reach with Whole Foods to 14 stores nationally, along with launching a line of Asian-style barbecue sauces.
Looking back, Rane admits she never intended to start a company. “It was a pandemic project, but one thing led to another and here we are,” she says. “We were in the right place at the right time, with a little bit of the unexpected.”
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s November 2025 issue.
