Fourteen Days, Eight Planes, and a Whole Lot of Curry — My India Trip

I'm just home from India, and I'm still finding rice in my suitcase.

Fourteen days. Eight planes. Ten bus rides. Trains, rickshaws, three states. Curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner — and I wouldn't have changed a single meal of it.

I travelled as an official IFOAM Asia delegate this time, invited by APEDA and BIOFACH, alongside a group of people from thirteen countries who are all doing their own version of the same thing — showing up for the organic industry, in whatever way they can. Farmers, growers, manufacturers, exporters, storytellers. All of us there for the same reason.

I've been to India six times now. But this trip felt different. I wasn't just visiting this time — I was invited. And that shift, from guest to delegate, has stayed with me the whole way home.

Where We Went

We started in Delhi for BioFach, the big conference days — official openings, press at the door, speakers from India and Germany, a room full of people who care about the same things I do. Day one kicked off with something completely different: buyer-seller meetings that felt more like speed dating than business. Thirty conversations over the course of the day, one after another, with farmers and spice traders and small companies showing up with everything they've got.

Then Tripura. Honestly, Tripura might have stolen my heart a little. Rice varieties I'd never seen before. Red sesame seeds. The most fragrant lemons. Turmeric and ginger that smelled like nothing I'd smelled before. Organic tea farmers growing this beautiful CTC black tea that we barely use here in Australia — I can't stop thinking about it, I might have to play around with a chai blend using it. We were spoiled with tribal dances, local artists, the most incredible hospitality. Pineapple rava. Sticky rice with ginger and coconut. Chai that never stopped flowing. Morning walks meeting the fish vendors, wandering past temples, and somehow ending up at the Bangladesh border, just because we could.

Tripura felt worlds away from Delhi. Same country, completely different rhythm.

Strangers Becoming Friends

Something happened along the way that I didn't fully expect. We arrived as a group of strangers — delegates from thirteen countries, all there for our own reasons, all a bit polite and formal with each other in the beginning. But day by day, that shifted. Sharing meals, sharing stories, comparing notes on our products and our industries, finding the common threads between us. By the end, we weren't delegates anymore. We were friends.

I made some genuine, lifetime connections on this trip. The kind you don't expect from a work trip. And I know I wasn't the only one.

The Moment That Stopped Me

Eight days in, travelling alongside a group of people from all over the world, I got talking to Konrad, one of the delegates from Germany. We were comparing notes, the way you do on day eight of a trip like this — and somewhere in that conversation we realised we'd actually been at the same conference together. In India. Over fourteen years ago. At Bordi Beach.

That conference was one of the things that set me on the path to really supporting organic farmers and ingredients — right as Love My Earth was taking shape.

 

I didn't see that coming. You don't, usually. You go along, you live your life, you build your thing — and then one day, on the other side of the world, someone you've just met turns out to have been standing in the same room as you, right at the beginning, before either of you knew what you were building.

It's moments like that which make a trip like this feel like more than a work trip. One experience, one connection, one shared passion — and look at the path it shapes.

What I'm Bringing Home

Beyond the ideas, the samples, the new relationships — and there were plenty of all three — what I keep coming back to is how much India is leading the way. The innovation, the support for growers big and small, the sheer scale of what's happening in the organic space there. It's humbling to watch, and inspiring to be even a small part of.

Ganeshpuri

I finished this trip in Ganeshpuri, two hours out of Mumbai — the village where Love My Earth was born.

This was the first place I visited in India. Not for work, just for rest and respite, after my dad had passed away. I've gone back and spent weeks at a time with them since, laughing, learning to cook better Indian food :) This time was no different — they always feed me up on home-cooked food made with so much love, always give me somewhere to rest. It felt like no time had passed on this visit, except the kids had all grown up, and I'm a bit older.

I feel grateful — to have been invited as a delegate on this amazing organic trip, rubbing shoulders with the leaders and future farmers, entrepreneurs of this industry, and just as grateful to be welcomed home into a kitchen in a small village where none of this would have ever unfolded without them.

This trip has planted a lot of seeds for Love My Earth — new ideas, new connections, and honestly, a fresh wave of inspiration for where this all goes next. I'll be sharing more of that as it unfolds.

For now, I'm just going to keep finding rice in my suitcase and be grateful for every grain of it.

Jess