Building Resilience As A Sustainable Spice Company

Forbes

01-05-2025

Spice company Diaspora Co. and its CEO Sana Javeri Kadri have weathered much turbulence in recent years: from climate-related disruptions to harvests, to the global pandemic and geopolitical flare-ups. Adapting has become a core skill for Kadri; in her words, there is 'a new fire every day' to put out.
This time on April 2nd, the disruption came from the Trump Administration's new tariff policy. Kadri reached out several days later to her customers to explain how the policy would impact Diaspora Co's operations. New import taxes - ranging between 25% to 45% - applied to two key sourcing countries: India, where 93% of Diaspora's spices come from, and Sri Lanka, where the remainder are grown.
The email - and the assurances Kadri made - were astonishing. Diaspora Co. would not pass on any new costs to farmers and consumers. Customers would not see any price increases. There would be no cuts in wages to its regenerative farm partners - they would continue to be paid four times more than the commodity price.
Maintaining these commitments - i.e. 'business per usual' - in the wake of such market upheaval seems infeasible. But as it turns out, Diaspora Co. operates in a unique niche. The NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) reports that products marketed as sustainable have grown every year since 2013, with a significant share increase during the pandemic and recent inflation.
'Sustainably marketed products are growing 2.3 times faster than conventional products and at a 27% price premium on average. So even if a product will be five or 10% more expensive due to tariffs, consumers are willing to pay. It may mean that companies are going to take a little bit less of a premium than they have been taking in the past, but there remains strong demand. Opportunities are there for small companies who have competitive advantages around their sustainability offerings versus more traditional companies,' said Tensie Whelan, Founding Director of NYU Stern's Center for Sustainable Business.
Tins from Diaspora Co.
In their study of what environmental sustainability claims resonate with consumers, CSB found that consumers care most about themselves and their families, especially when buying products that are made without harmful ingredients to human health. In spices, this is especially pertinent as many instances of lead and ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen, have been reported.
In short, sustainability-focused enterprises - like Diaspora Co - enjoy more stable price points. But even then, there are other challenges and complexities to deal with.
Some of these involve geography, traditions, and culture. Case in point: a counterpart once suggested that production of Diaspora's spices be shifted to American soil. For Kadri, that was not only logistically impossible, but also morally unconscionable. An ordinary observer may think Diaspora's spices are like other ordinary food items. But in fact, they have rich and storied histories and require specific growing conditions found only in their regions of origin within the South Asian subcontinent. Locals grow the crops with expertise inherited over thousands of years, across generations of their families. They work the same land their ancestors farmed.
Sirārakhong (also spelled Sira Rakong) chilies drying process.
Sirārakhong (also spelled Sira Rakong) chilies.
'Often when you devalue a product, or you think of it as inherently cheap, you are disconnected from where it comes from. You think it should be able to appear from anywhere. Take, for example, champagne. Would people ever expect champagne to not come from France? They know that the sparkling wine that comes from California is not champagne but there is a certain luxury that is ascribed to something coming from France and coming from England and coming from Europe at large, that is white supremacy and colonialism at work,' said Kadri.
'But when it comes from Asia. There is an intrinsic feeling that we can make that here. And that's not true. We are growing the equivalent of champagne from France. For example, we source black pepper from a region in Kerala -it is vine ripened, sun dried, and then hand processed, like it is the highest grade of pepper one can humanly grow.'
Attempting to replicate this cultivation or these traditions elsewhere at scale isn't just impractical - it is a misunderstanding of what makes these ingredients valuable in the first place. They are indigenous to their specific regions and the knowhow to produce them also is native to those areas.
Take cardamom, another spice that is indigenous to the hills of Kerala and has been growing there for thousands of years. It i's a deeply South Indian crop that eventually found its way to Guatemala where the rainforests are very similar in that they are very wet at high elevations. These are the only two regions globally that, by virtue of geography, grow cardamom at scale.
But Diaspora's farm partner spent 15 years finding a way to grow cardamom in Kerala without pesticides while still maintaining maximum aroma and flavor. Kadri says, 'Even if I wanted to source from Guatemala tomorrow, I don't know if that beautiful, wild variety that our farm partner domesticated and bred to be pesticide free would flourish in Guatemala. I certainly cannot transplant all of that knowledge overnight to Guatemala and, of course, importing into the US from Guatemala would be just as difficult.'
For Kadri, there is an emotional and cultural significance of sourcing from India and Sri Lanka. She is committed to honoring the deep-rooted cultural and agricultural traditions, and ensuring the highest quality ingredients.
Long before the inflationary pressure, Kadri was making hard concessions to the geopolitical conditions of the day. For example, as recently as two years ago, Diaspora Co. would separately import its packaging materials from China and its spices from India. The company would work with different co-packers in California, Colorado, and New York to blend the masalas, and pack the spices into jars.
But in August 2023, Kadri made the decision to shift packaging production from Chinese manufacturers to Indian suppliers. It was a decision rooted not in concerns about quality or reliability, but great-power politics: there was increasing friction between China on one hand and the United States and India on the other.
'We saw the Chinese-American relationship shift towards animosity. If you ask Chinese manufacturers, they will say they have been planning for this for eight years," said Kadri. "The Chinese have been building factories in Vietnam and Bangladesh, and because they are the best, they have alternatives"
Kadri asked Indian manufacturers to see whether they could replicate the Chinese standard of packaging. They were candid about not being able to do so. 'China manufactures the best packaging in the world. And the Indian manufacturers were super frank about it: 'China is operating in the future – in 2050 - we are operating in 2010. There's a 40-year difference.''
Kadri was wary of maintaining supply chains and operations across multiple countries so she decided to focus her company, headquartered in India, on stable supply chains in India and Sri Lanka. The modern Chinese tins were axed.
In 2024, Diaspora Co. expanded globally: they launched in the United Kingdom last year and have plans to expand to Australia next year.
And then there is the current populist atmosphere. Kadri recalls when Diaspora Co.launched tote bags four years ago that were ethically sourced in India. Someone pointedly asked why American cotton was not used. Kadri noted that India ranks as the largest producer of organic cotton globally at 51%, according to the Textile Exchange.
'The larger question of being divorced from where things come from and how things get to you, that is the main problem, and that's what we need to address. If culturally, we can understand that, then as a country, I hope we would not accept these policies from our own government. Right now, there is a lack of understanding and ignorance. And our ignorance allows this stuff to happen, like thinking that we are somehow going to become a spice manufacturing country,' adds Kadri.
Sustainability has been a personally rewarding and fulfilling model. But there are macro challenges. There are high costs to using platforms like Meta, Google, Shopify, and Amazon, and Kadri is now trying to minimize reliance on these platforms. She is not shy about her support for breaking up monopolies, supporting local innovation and resilience in certain parts of the United States, and getting more support from the Small Business Association (SBA).
Despite the success and growth in market share of sustainability-focused ventures, many long-standing companies have not yet embraced it. If any do, they do it for de-risking or ethical reasons. Crucially, many neglect to track the financial benefits of sustainability - which, as it turns out, can be substantial.
Whelan points to the example of McCormick & Company, a global company specializing in spices, flavorings, and baking products. Whelan studied the company and found that it benefited by approximately $6-million when it made its supply chains more sustainable. The company was surprised by the finding. They simply hadn't been examining their work through that lens.
Madhur Jaggery Powder and Garam Masala
Whelan worked on another case study with a smaller company extracting cocoa from West Africa. The findings were a surprise to that company as well: 'We determined that they get out of the commodity business and get more into sustainable, traceable cocoa. They would actually have a better business model. They would attract specialty buyers who were more interested in long term engagements, and who were willing to pay a premium price.'
The demand is there if the quality is there, says Whelan.
During President Trump's 90-day pause - which happens to be during Diaspora Co's harvest season - the company will maximize production while hoping for what Kadri calls wildly optimistic non-local food exemptions, similar to ones coffee lobbyists are also seeking. So far, what she has found is increased customs scrutiny and delays, complex shipping paperwork and confusion amongst customs brokers.
But Kadri is holding fast. For her, it's about the importance of conscious consumption, choosing high-quality options over cheaper but less sustainable alternatives, and the need for systemic changes.