2016, Turmeric Latte All the angerbut Sana Javeri Kadri thinks the taste of those in San Francisco where she lives doesn’t taste like the fresh spices she grew up in India.
Javeri Kadri, the front-line chef who once marketed for Bay Area grocers, “know [her] Bypassing the spices”, but new to the industry. Still, she booked tickets to Mumbai in hopes she would make her flavor richer.
After contacting many growers, she met an organic turmeric farmer and used her taxes and her parents’ loan to buy a batch of crops. It became the foundation of an expatriate company, which Javeri Kadri launched at the age of 23 the following year.
From the beginning, Javeri Kadri aimed to bypass industrial spice farms, she found that her products were bland and came from farmers who used regeneration practices. This means working directly with producers and paying them a living wage.
“With rough math, I probably came into contact with about 2,500 farmers,” she said.
After growing the U.S. market for her turmeric for two years, Javeri Kadri added black pepper to the mix. After that, she said, it was an “exponential curve.”
Today, the Expatriate Company has 24 employees and sells about 40 different spices and mixtures from 140 different farms in India and Sri Lanka.
Expatriate is part of a new wave of spice companies, including Burlap and bucket Spicewalla is a hub for sustainable farm procurement, paying producers a living wage, creating a more transparent (and streamlined) supply chain – measures they say allow them to bring obvious fresh spices to market.
Javeri Kadri said that due to the longer supply chain, spices can take years to attract consumers, meaning they “have expired even before they arrive at you.”
She said expat farmers rotate crops, maintain plant diversity and use water retardation systems – regeneration practices not only minimize farm carbon footprint, but also make them more resilient to climate shocks.
This means that when Tamil Nadu, which was scattered in India last year, attacked Tamil Nadu, the cardamom farms of the diaspora “had such huge inflatable soil and such good irrigation that they only stayed in the water for a few hours, and then the soil and property were able to flush themselves clean”, minimizing the loss.
Javeri Kadri stressed that her partner was already practicing sustainable agriculture before she arrived on the site, but she was connected to each other. “If you let them talk, they will solve the problem,” she said. “They are all experts.”
Expatriate companies have low staff mobility and enduring partnerships, and Javeri Kadri attributes the company’s commitment to fair wages. “Once we have a relationship with them, it never goes anywhere,” she said.
In 2022, Expatriate Corporation opened a fund for farm workers, provided financial literacy workshops and provided seed funding for open bank accounts. At Cardamom Farm, workers requested a community room and kitchen, which Javeri Kadri admitted wasn’t what she expected. “It’s what they need, not what we need to sit in the United States,” she said. “It’s true that we listen directly to the workers.”
Javeri Kadri is not just “trading spices”, she has also built a unique supply chain and helped catalyze the demand for products that “living in harmony with nature.”
He added: “Whenever you have a company that stimulates demand, buys the right product, pays the right price for it and creates a healthy agroecosystem, that’s what revolutionizes the food system.”
As Javeri Kadri said, the efforts of the Diaspora “decolonizing spice trade” have also proved profitable. She has raised about $2.5 million from angel investors over the past few years, and despite her refusal to share revenue, the company has grown twenty-fold in the past five years. Now its spices are sold in 400 stores in the U.S., and last year, with the help of the NATO region, the Expatriate Company expanded to the UK.
Javeri Kadri has not imposed a force on existing partners to increase production, which could impose taxes on land (and workers), and she said she plans to continue adding new farm partners to continue to increase production.
Javeri Kadri has other projects, including the new Masala Chai Tea Blend, another blend developed with former top chef host Padma Lakshmi and A recipe Equipped with recipes from partner farms. “A lot of people told me, ‘Oh, Indian food is intimidating, heavy or complicated,’ and the whole premise of this book is how do we make it as bright, fresh and accessible as possible?” Javeri Kadri said.
She plans to launch these projects as she manages a brand new challenge: this month, Donald Trump He said he would raise tariffs on Indian products to 50%, and Javeri Kadri is expected to cost her company $100,000 to $200,000, and by the end of the year she has no choice but to eventually raise the price. (She said they have paid about $20,000 in tariffs since April when the U.S. imposed its initial taxes.)
Javeri Kadri’s entire business model is built on procuring spices in indigenous South Asia, which means she cannot rotate her supply chain even if she wants.
“People would say, ‘Well, we don’t need those exotic ingredients,” she said. But, she added, “There is no American like Apple Pie. Apple Pie depends on cinnamon. American classics are vanilla ice cream; we don’t grow vanilla. Many of these ingredients are not exotic by nature, but they come from other places.”
David Ortega, chairman of food economics and policy at Michigan State University, said tariffs could have a particularly destructive impact on companies such as diaspora. “These tariff price increases really jeopardize these priorities.”
Due to higher tariffs and economic uncertainty surrounding trade policies, Javeri Kadri admits that the U.S. market may be difficult to grow in the next few years. Her method?
“We’re growing elsewhere. We’re going to places where we’re not punished in doing business,” she said. “It’s simple.”
Health & Wellness Contributor
A wellness enthusiast and certified nutrition advisor, Meera covers everything from healthy living tips to medical breakthroughs. Her articles aim to inform and inspire readers to live better every day.
