History

Mrs Shaheen Unis first came to Britain as a young bride from Pakistan in 1967. She has been both tempting and educating Scottish palates since 1974, ever since she started working in her brother-in-law's restaurant in Edinburgh's Tollcross.

In the early seventies, Asian food was a taste few Scots had acquired. It was the pioneering work of Mrs Unis and other inspirational Asian chefs that helped to open minds as well as mouths of many to the delights of South Asian cooking.

Authentic South Asian cooking remains one of the most enduring mysteries of the culinary world. Exotic ingredients, regional specialities and ancient secrets are all part of the preparation and enjoyment. Essentially, quality Asian cooking comes down to two basic principles. Firstly, the freshest ingredients and secondly, experience. Unusual ingredients associated with authentic South Asian cooking include jeera, methi, garam masala, red chilli and turmeric.

Mrs Unis combined these two principles perfectly when she and her husband opened their first restaurant in 1980. Nadia's in Edinburgh's Dalry Road provided Mrs Unis with the perfect opportunity to fully develop her cooking skills, providing Scottish diners with South Asian dishes of rare authenticity. All the elements - fresh herbs and spices, halal meats, vegetables and oven-baked nan breads - were carefully combined to turn Nadia's into the destination of choice for those seeking Scotland's finest Asian cooking.

In 1984 the restaurant business expanded into the retail, wholesale and catering markets under the name Sonia's Asian Delicacies. In 1998, Mrs Unis Spicy Foods Ltd was finally born, signalling the start of a period of growth that led to the opening of Edinburgh's first purpose-built factory unit in Peffermill in 1999.

After a fire in May 2005 that devastated Mrs Unis's factory and after much delay, production commenced finally in August 2006 aimed at expanding the dynamic Mrs Unis brand across the UK.