Two partners, a laboratory business and a plan for branded spice.

National Foods began in Karachi in 1970. The Pakistan Credit Rating Agency (PACRA), in a rating report published in April 2023, says that Abdul Majeed and Waqar Hasan established the company that year “to introduce branded and packaged spices” by acquiring a business it calls National Foods Laboratories; English Wikipedia describes that business as National Laboratories, a food-testing facility, which the two partners turned into a spice maker. Waqar Hasan was also a cricketer: English Wikipedia records that he played in 21 Test matches for Pakistan between 1952 and 1959, and when he died in February 2020, ESPNcricinfo reported him as the last surviving link to Pakistan’s first Test team. He also served several times as a national selector between the 1960s and the 1980s, English Wikipedia says.

English Wikipedia says the company was incorporated as a private limited company in February 1970 and became a public limited company in March 1988, the same year in which, it adds, National became a certified vendor of the American spice company McCormick. Its shares are listed in Pakistan. Profit by Pakistan Today described National in March 2024 as the pioneer of packaged spice mixes in Pakistan, and said the company enjoyed a successful first decade before meeting its first real competition in 1981, when Shan arrived.

Ownership has stayed concentrated. PACRA reported that the sponsoring family held about 57% of the company in 2023, through ATC Holdings and individual holdings, and that the board was dominated by that family. The same report named Zahid Majeed, associated with the company since 1987, as chairman since April 2022, and Abrar Hasan as chief executive.

Spices first, then the rest of the pantry.

National started with spices and broadened. PACRA said in 2023 that the company offered about 250 products across 11 categories, named it the market leader in recipe mixes and spices, ketchups, pickles, salt and jellies, and said recipe mixes made up the largest share of its revenue. English Wikipedia lists spices, pickles, tomato ketchup, jams, jellies, sauces, cooking pastes and fruit drinks, along with ready-to-eat biryanis and curries. That breadth set it apart from its main rival: Profit reported in 2021 that while Shan led in masala mixes, National, with its ketchups and achaars, had earned the larger total revenue since at least 2009.

Its marketing has followed the same spread. Aurora, the Dawn group’s marketing magazine, reported in 2015 that spice brands had not traditionally spent much on promoting plain spices, where shoppers are less loyal to a brand than they are with recipe mixes, and that National’s “Kitchen Cabinet” campaign was trying to change that. English Wikipedia notes that Forbes included the company in its 2013 list of Asia’s 200 “Best Under A Billion” companies.

Production has spread well beyond the first site. PACRA dates a second production facility to 1986, a third, at Port Qasim, to 2006 and a fourth, at Gujranwala, to 2015, and in 2023 listed its plants as Port Qasim, SITE, Nooriabad and Gujranwala. Dawn reported in June 2022 that National planned a fifth plant in Faisalabad, and in May 2024 the company said it had inaugurated its largest manufacturing facility there.

Packaged spice in Pakistan and its diaspora.

The seven brands in this group are all food and drink names from Pakistan and Sri Lanka: Shan, National Foods, Rooh Afza, Olper’s, Tapal, Elephant House and Munchee. Pakistani and Sri Lankan food and drink brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s name to names that now belong to much larger food and drink groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a supermarket shelf.

A food or drink brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a pack, a name and the meal, snack or drink it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its products are actually made and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A Karachi spice house with a Canadian arm.

Exports have driven much of National’s recent growth. Profit reported in 2021 that the United States and Canada accounted for 92% of the company’s exports in 2020, and that between 2013 and 2019 it overtook Shan as the larger exporter, as the Pakistani diaspora in North America grew. PACRA says the company sells into about 40 countries across five continents through National Foods DMCC, a wholly owned subsidiary in the United Arab Emirates set up in 2013.

The Canadian business came through that subsidiary. According to PACRA, National Foods DMCC invested in National Epicure Inc. of Canada, which then acquired 60% of A-1 Cash & Carry. English Wikipedia describes A1 Cash & Carry as a Canadian wholesale distributor of foodservice, disposable and janitorial products and dates the deal to 2017; it also lists a British subsidiary, National Foods Pakistan (UK) Limited. Profit noted in 2021 that National had added its new lines as wholly or majority-owned subsidiaries of the listed company, and that foreign shareholders included the Singapore-based investment firm Arisaig Partners. The magazine also reported that between 2015 and 2018 National doubled its spending on marketing and distribution in pursuit of international growth, and that its management held about 39% of the shares, against the 82% held by Shan’s founding family. PACRA noted that the company holds halal certification and that its products are certified to ISO 22000, the food-safety management standard.

For a design guide, National Foods shows how a spice house can widen into a full pantry while its first category stays at the centre of the business. Compare Shan, its younger Karachi rival, and MDH, the masala house that began as a spice shop in Sialkot. For this guide we use tomato red, leaf green and warm cream with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep National Foods’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.