At 23, she set out to modernize the spice trade. Now she’s navigating Trump’s tariffs
In 2016, turmeric lattes were all the rage, but Sana Javeri Kadri thought the ones in San Francisco, where she lives, tasted nothing like the fresh spices she grew up with in India.
A former line cook who was doing marketing for a Bay Area grocer, Javeri Kadri “knew [her] way around spices”, but was new to the industry. Still, she booked a ticket home to Mumbai, hoping that she could get richer flavors into US pantries.
After reaching out to a number of growers, she met an organic turmeric farmer and, using her tax refund and a loan from her parents, bought a batch of the crop. It became the foundation of Diaspora Co, which Javeri Kadri launched the following year at just 23.
From the outset, Javeri Kadri aimed to bypass industrial spice farms, whose products she found bland, and instead source from farmers using regenerative practices. This meant working directly with the producers and paying them a living wage.
“By rough math, I probably reached out to around 2,500 farmers,” she said.
After two years of growing a US market for her turmeric, Javeri Kadri added black pepper to the mix. For a while after that, it was an “exponential growth curve”, she said.
Today Diaspora Co has 24 employees and sells around 40 different spices and blends, sourced from 140 different farms in India and Sri Lanka.
