First of all, Happy Diwali! As the aunties would say, it's *very* auspicious to be releasing our first ever impact report on the morning of the new year and in a celebration of the triumph of light over darkness. It's been a hard couple seasons and the process of putting together this report was a beautiful, challenging exercise in giving ourselves perspective, celebrating the progress we have made, and clearly defining how far we still want to go.
I've held a lot of skepticism around impact reports over the years, wanting to focus more on doing the work than on talking about doing the work, especially as a small scrappy team always stretched for bandwidth. But earlier this year, we put together our first cookbook proposal; then a pitch deck for prospective investors ahead of our seed fundraise; shortly thereafter, a strategic vision deck to guide our first board meeting; and now this beautiful impact report!
The exercise of creating these select few reports has been deeply clarifying for myself and the company. Editing down to what's most important to us (Regenerative agriculture! Our farmers thriving! Delicious food being shared!); setting up sustainable systems for clear, measurable data; and finally, being ambitious but rigorous with ourselves about what we can accomplish next year (EVERYTHING!!! Lol.).
As you dig through the report, I have a few guiding questions and thoughts:
1. Data collection around measuring impact is inherently messy and a little bit squishy, thus my years-long skepticism! We are committed to improving how we measure and validate our impact and our data. If you have questions about ANY of the numbers in here, please reach out! We'd love to chat, and it'll actually really help us do this better and with more insight over time. That being said, I am bloody proud of these numbers! :')
2. More of the same really but PLEASE give us your feedback — good, bad, curious, or critical! Which bits stood out to you and felt most in alignment with your values? Were there questions about our work and our values that felt unanswered? Do you have examples of impact reporting you want us to see? Our goal has always been to set the highest standard for the spice industry, and we're honoured to be held accountable to that by our community.
3. THANK YOU!!! I say this over and over, but I could not have humanly imagined that the small turmeric-hued dream of 2017 could grow into over A MILLION DOLLARS AND COUNTING towards South Asia's best regenerative farmers. I'll say it for as long as I hold this role, but it is a gift and a privilege to do this work. Thank you for making it possible.
