Manjula: From the beginning

Learn more about what we do

Established in 2015, we have been trading for over 10 years, and here's our story so far!

During the Mongol rally - a drive from London to Mongolia - whilst onboard a cargo ferry stuck in the Caspian Sea, the word "Manjula" was first heard - not the usual birthplace for a company, but it's where we started! Every day we'd hear "Manjula" bellowing through the crew quarters; confined and hungry, we always answered. The food may have been somewhat undesirable but the word Manjula was not, and it has stuck ever since. This was way back in 2013 and since then, Manjula has gone from an uttered word to food from all over the world. This trip gave the creator, Brad, the idea and the confidence to start his own business. Nothing quite says you can do whatever you want in life than driving a car with a slipping clutch for 5,000 miles... However, with a little bit more of his degree to finish and another trip to South America in the pipeline, Manjula would have to wait. At the age of 22, graduated and well travelled, Brad was ready to take a shot at street food.

This boat was simply the start, and this is evidenced below. Since then, things have really moved for the better. Starting off as a vegetarian caterer, we travelled the country with our little blue horsebox, somewhat naïve and inexperienced in street food. Our first year can only be described as an education... We worked small events, steam rallies and country fayres and this brought us to one conclusion: veggies do not go to these events. Change was needed and there was only one thing for it - to learn from these lessons and to go vegan. We haven't looked back since.

Our second year was, if anything, more of an education - we had moved onto bigger, but not necessarily better, things. We made our first leap into the festival world, ramping up our setup and capacity. This was another lesson learnt, however, as just because there are lots of people attending an event, this doesn't always mean that they want to eat! It was still a great year though (despite one of our biggest festivals being so muddy it was cancelled on the last day, but we won't dwell on that...). 2017 was our first year of festivals, some major like Parklife and some fairly small like ArcTanGent. This was where we found our niche - small grassroots festivals with audiences who appreciate the love and passion that we put into our food. 2017 was a year of some amazing highs and some real muddy lows so we persevered into 2018, a year in which all the hard work paid off.

In 2018, we took the approach of only taking on small events that we vetted to make sure the market was right and the organisers were honest. Thankfully we achieved that as we have since been lucky enough to work at some of the most exciting small festivals in the country - El Dorado, 2000 trees, ArcTanGent, Barn on the Farm, just to name a few. We also added our second trailer to the mix, a trailer hand-built by Brad's Grandad some 40 years ago. The conversion was inspired by the late, legendary John West (of no tuna relation). His determination and eye for detail made the conversion very personal, with so many people helping to get it finished. With two trailers in the fleet, we can now double book over the summer - a real game changer. 

In 2019, we mainly stuck to what we knew best - music festivals - again working smarter and not faster. This was a good year to build on our reputation, running two festivals in a weekend whilst also making our first break into Europe at We Love Green Festival.