The Locavore is a platform committed to creating enduring impact through food. Our initiatives are designed to champion local and seasonal food, archive culinary knowledge, and build awareness around where our food comes from. In a rapidly warming world, we’re also consciously spotlighting diverse food practices that are climate-resilient, and the communities responsible for preserving them.
The Locavore was founded in 2022 by Chef Thomas Zacharias. Our work presently spans:
We Tell Compelling Stories
We share immersive stories centred around food in India through reported journalism, personal narratives, conversations, and documenting fast-fading foods and traditions. These stories lie at the intersection of culture, history, labour, and the environment.
Read about a rice wine brewed by Dimasa women in Assam, a Bengaluru market dating back to 1820, a welfare kitchen feeding Delhi’s mazdoors, and what the GI tag really means.
We Bridge the Gap between Farmers and Consumers
In order to amplify the work that farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs are doing to build a better food system, we turn the spotlight on homegrown producers who have adopted the practices of sustainability, transparency, and traditional knowledge.
These include bee-keepers sourcing honey from Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh; a women-led organisation producing juicy, indigenous raisins in Sangli; and a producer reviving Bengal’s traditional winter jaggery.
We Bring People Together Through Events and Experiences
We are passionate about how food breaks barriers, forges bonds, and builds equity. Through experiences spanning travel, dining, workshops, and meetups across India, we expand our collective understanding of what it means to partake in culinary experiences different from one’s own.
Read about our multi-course dinner in Meghalaya, a festival where we displayed 200 wild foods from Adivasi communities in Palghar, or how the first Chef on the Road trip to Jokai in Assam, a town famous for its fragrant tea, has prompted us to plan more.
We Build Projects that Endure Meaningfully
With a steadfast focus on leveraging research and knowledge, sustaining community engagement, and iterating and growing along the way, our projects are designed to tackle specific challenges in the Indian food system.
While the Millet Revival Project—in collaboration with the Rainmatter Foundation—aims to reinvigorate India’s relationship with typically overlooked millets, the Wild Food Project studies, archives, and recognises the culinary and cultural importance of forest produce from indigenous communities.
We Show You How to Cook with Indigenous Produce
Spotted a leafy vegetable in the market in the monsoon and don’t know what to do with it? Wished you had documented your grandmother’s refreshing take on a summer cooler before you left home?
Our compendium of regional recipes from chefs, home cooks, and culinary experts highlights local, seasonal produce and caters to every kind of cook—whether you’re curious and experimentative (try this tuna biryani from Mumbai’s Worli Koliwada) or taking baby steps in the kitchen (give this stir-fried Koorka Ularthu a shot).
We Amplify Impact-Driven Organisations
In an attempt to bring about awareness and create tangible, impact-driven action to preserve, protect, and promote the work of vulnerable groups in India’s food system, we work with policymakers, grassroot-level organisations, and educational institutions.
We even garner support from the larger community; read about how you helped us raise funds for the nutrition programme of a school in Dahanu, Maharashtra and for contributed towards a grassroots kitchen that feeds daily-wage workers in Delhi NCR.
So, Who is a 'Locavore'?
A ‘Locavore’ is someone who consumes locally sourced food as much as possible. We’ve extended this term to refer to someone who makes thoughtful choices about food, prioritising community well-being, local farmers, and culinary heritage.