About this business
Bob Sandhu didn't build Sandhus Nutrition to sell supplements. He just wanted to help people heal.
His earliest years in the Bay Area included going door-to-door to Indian grocery stores, not to push products, but to connect with and educate his community.
Bob's non-negotiables drove the company's values — no shortcuts and everything must be third-party tested, cGMP manufactured, and clearly labeled. Sandhus Nutrition is a success today because it stayed true from the start. Now, Bob’s daughter, Anna, has carried those same values into her own wellness brand, SFG Biome, and Sandhus Nutrition is expanding into new categories and markets.
"Your business is beyond the product you make," Bob says. "It's part of who you are."
Ancient wisdom, modern standards
Bob grew up in India at the intersection of two worlds: pharmacy and farming. He arrived in the Bay Area in the mid-1990s with a rigorous understanding of how substances interact with the body and a deep respect for the plant-based wisdom that had guided his family’s health for generations. Gymnema for blood sugar. Green tea for metabolic support. Ayurvedic compounds his family had relied on long before Western science began catching up.
"We take the ancient and bring it to modern life," Bob says.
He began by importing wellness products from India in 1996 and pitching to local businesses, particularly those in the Bay Area's Indian grocery community. He started his business having one neighborly conversation at a time. The pitch was about shared values and individual health first; margins and marketing could come later.
"My goal was not just to sell," Bob says. "It was to build a relationship and educate them about the products and their benefits."
That community-first instinct grew the business so steadily that by 2004, importing wasn't enough.
Bob looked to launch Sandhus Nutrition's own manufacturing operation, bringing every stage of production under his direct oversight. It was a move rooted more in the responsibility he feels than in ambition. If he was going to put something in front of families, including his own, it had to meet a standard he set himself.
"I'd never sell something I wouldn't give to my own daughters" is the personal standard Bob formalized across the business. In an industry sometimes criticized for vague claims and murky sourcing, he ensures his products meet cGMP standards; they undergo third-party testing for identity, potency, heavy metals, and allergens, and feature clear labeling.
A banking relationship rooted in community
Around 2017, a referral from Jack W. Balch, president of Balch Enterprises, a third-generation East Bay commercial real estate institution, brought the Sandhus to Fremont Bank. The referral was significant because Bob had watched Fremont Bank support the Balch family over the years. "Fremont Bank said yes to Jack's family," he says, "and now look at their empire!"
He walked in looking for what he'd always looked for in all his relationships: a partner who would listen, respond, and show up.
Nobel Messiah, Senior Commercial Relationship Manager, provided business lending support, offering the attentive, straightforward, and personalized service a growing manufacturer needed.
"The best part is how much less stressful it was,” Bob says. “Fremont Bank takes your word, and it's just one email, and you have the answer the next day."
Looking back on the early days of helping Bob Sandhu get set up with Fremont Bank, Nobel remembers a partnership that clicked from the very beginning: "It was one of those relationships that just felt right. Fremont Bank values building long-term partnerships with local family-owned businesses, and Sandhu was exactly that. We were aligned from the start, and it genuinely felt like we were meant to work together."
When Sandhus Nutrition needed to expand its warehouse space to keep pace with growing demand, Fremont Bank was there to provide the financing.
"You reach out to whoever will listen and help you," Bob says. "That's exactly what a bank is about too, right? Your community."
The next generation
Bob's daughter Anna didn't grow up planning to start another wellness company. In high school, she began to experience fatigue and recurring illness. Rather than dismiss her symptoms, Anna turned to what she'd seen at home: health-promoting food, an emphasis on strong gut health, and a proactive willingness to look for root causes.
Her healing journey led her to create SFG Biome, a gut health brand she's building from the ground up, just like her dad did with Sandhus Nutrition. It's designed around products that are easy to take, easy to stay consistent with, and grounded in the same evidence-aware philosophy her father built his business on.
"I wasn't getting enough of the nutritional rainbow," Anna says. With SFG Biome, users can get "everything your gut needs in one simple scoop," she says.
She has her family's support, and she sees their traditional roots as a head start in building her business. "Western science is going back in time to ancient wisdom," she says, "because so much was figured out back then that we're only scratching the surface of now."
Meanwhile, Sandhus Nutrition is planning to expand into the pet wellness category. It's a booming industry and one ready for the same evidence-aware, clearly labeled standards to be applied to products for animals.
What's next
A dedicated probiotic manufacturing facility is under development for the next product line at Sandhus Nutrition. Industry standards require probiotics to be produced in a separate, controlled environment, and Fremont Bank is ready to help make it happen.
The wholesale program is growing beyond California, and the Sandhus have the production scale and distribution infrastructure in place, along with a strong brand reputation to build on, so Bob can focus on a challenge successful founders face; finding the right people. "We're looking for like-minded people who can grow with us," he says.
"We compete with ourselves," he adds. "Competition is good — it keeps you sharp. But our focus is on continuing to learn, continuing to improve the product, and keeping it affordable."
Bob's mission to help people and build something as principled as it is durable hasn't changed since he first walked into a Bay Area Indian grocery store and asked if he could tell them about a tea that might help their customers manage their blood sugar.
For Fremont Bank, backing a business that's patient, principled, and community-rooted is exactly what community banking is made for.
