He's belied the oft-stated misconception that cooks don't make great businessmen. And he is someone who feels fortunate enough to have done things he really likes doing. His contended smile describes his success. Well-known celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor (remember Khana Khazana?) today has moved from being a famous cooking show host to an entrepreneur and director of India's first homegrown food related channel FoodFood.

But the good looking Sanjeev Kapoor, who sees opportunities where others see challenges, dismisses his achievement by saying: "I feel I am still in the kitchen and this is my favourite part."

In a conversation with Indiantelevision.com's Seema Singh, Kapoor speaks his heart out on his journey which started from people laughing at his dreams for a food channel to earning their respect today as an entrepreneur who is building a solid business. Excerpts:
How did Turmeric Vision (TVPL), Astro All Asia Networks (Astro) and Sandeep Goyal's Mogae Groupa come together to start the channel Food Food? How has the association been?
The first thought of doing a 24-hour channel on food came to me in 2003. But I was not sure I could do it on my own. And hence, I started pitching the idea to others. People thought I was mad. They thought how can a category, which is a half hour afternoon slot, become a full time channel.

When I initiated the talks, I didn't think that I could start a channel. There were channels in all genres, so why not have a 24 hour food channel? But I had decided I would do this with someone else. Sadly, no one thought of it as being an opportunity.I chatted with Scripps Network's Food Network internationally, but they were not interested. I also approached the BBC, which already was already airing lots of food programming. It did show some interest in the beginning, but after the meeting was fixed in London, BBC cancelled.

It was then that I decided that I would start the channel on my own. It was out of sheer anger. I thought this was something I really wanted to do and so started thinking, working on and understanding it. At that time, the then Sony Entertainment Television CEO Kunal Dasgupta, was someone who understood what I was envisioning and thought that food as a category will grow, which was very encouraging.

In 2006, I set up TVPL. I applied to ministry of information & broadcasting for an uplinking licence and started building the channel. At around this time I met up and discussed my plans with Sandeep Goyal who was then the CEO of Zee TV. Being a foodie himself, he was in sync with my thoughts. It was he who suggested the name of Astro Networks as a possible partner for this venture. Sandeep also joined us as a notional partner.

I had lost about three years in between ideating and finally setting up the company and the channel. I lost ; one because of the unfavourable market scenario from 2007 to 2009 and secondly because we were in active discussion with several media groups in India which didn't work out.

But when we launched it, it was at the right time

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