WHEN FOOD IS THE ANSWER

The role of regional cuisine and indigenous produce in sustaining a region has found new potential in the past year.

- Smitha Menon

In April 2020, at the height of the pandemic and the uncertainties it brought, Shubhra Chatterji and her husband Anand Sankar had a brainwave. Based in the remote Tons Valley in the northwestern region of Uttarakhand that survived on agriculture and tourism before the pandemic, Sankar had a front-row seat to the havoc COVID-19 wreaked. In any given year, the region would have been prepping for apple season—a short but fruitful period between July and September—during which Tons Valley farmers would travel to the mandi in Dehradun to sell their ruby-hued fruit and tide over the cold winter. But in 2020, locals were scrambling to return to their homes and farmers were staring at devastation.

Chatterji, a filmmaker and food researcher combined her social media skills with the expertise of her social entrepreneur husband to set up an “experiment”. “We asked friends and family to pre-book boxes of apples in April for when they would be ready in July. The idea was to create a cash flow for farmers to help them tide over this period. We wanted to sell 200 boxes. We ended up selling 25,000kgs,” says Chatterji. The success of the first sale led to the launch of Tons Valley Shop (tonsvalley.shop), an online store that sells produce—rajma, desi ghee, walnuts, apples and other seasonal ingredients—from this tiny patch in the hills to places like Guwahati, Jammu, Bhuj and even Thiruvananthapuram. “Honestly, we wouldn’t have had the guts to do it if we weren’t sure of the quality of the produce. For years, we’ve been transporting packets of rajma— the region has seven indigenous varieties—to our friends in Mumbai, who have more than once suggested we turn this into a business. The pandemic pushed us to do this to help the region survive.”