OUR CONCEPT

Heritage on My Plate began with a conversation around our dinner table in November 2015. Sanchi and I had been married for less than a year when a conversation with my aunt turned to something we both felt strongly about: how so many of our traditional foods and family recipes were slowly disappearing. Much of this knowledge had travelled orally from one generation to another, and somewhere along the way, convenience was beginning to replace authenticity. That conversation stayed with us. One Sunday, we sat together and imagined a small venture that could bring ingredients, recipes and food memories from different parts of India onto one plate. That is how the name Heritage on My Plate was born.

We started with our own savings, no elaborate setup and a simple belief that we first had to earn the trust of people who did not know us. Our early days were spent at small pop-ups at Dastkar and Kisan Haat in Delhi, speaking directly to customers and learning from them. Sanchi was always a baker at heart, and together we began experimenting with familiar Indian flavours in new forms. Paan Chocolate made with real betel leaves from Delhi’s paan mandi was among our first creations. Then came our homemade Gulquand, Gulquand Chocolate, Sanchi’s grandmother’s Amla ki Chutney, Bhut Jolokia Chocolate, Khajur Gur Rocks made with Bengal’s date palm jaggery, and Aam Papad Chocolate. Our chocolates went into reusable glass jars, packed by hand, one batch at a time.

Over the years, that little pantry grew. We added chutneys, relishes, chocolates and seasonal creations inspired by ingredients and memories from across India. During and around the Covid years, Sanchi trained professionally in chocolate making, and we took another important step. We moved from working with couverture to making our own bean-to-bar chocolate, investing in melangers and equipment and working more closely with Indian cacao. There were pauses along the way. Pregnancy, health issues, work and life sometimes forced us to slow down. But we never really stopped. Our website came alive, we reached customers through Amazon, built a loyal base of repeat buyers, entered corporate and festive gifting, worked on bulk and white-label orders, and eventually crossed 1.2 lakh units sold. Nearly a decade later, Heritage on My Plate is still deeply personal to us. We remain a small business where products are created, tasted, packed and discussed with the same involvement with which we began. What has changed is the confidence to dream bigger. Rooted is the next chapter of that journey, taking our love for Indian cacao, provenance and regional ingredients into a more contemporary expression. But the thought at the heart of it remains exactly the same as it was at our dinner table in 2015: to preserve the flavours we grew up with, celebrate the people and places they come from, and help our food heritage find a place in the lives of a new generation.