About the Founder

Read about Terra Food Co.

About the Founder:

Sriram Nair’s interest in food started as early as age five when he would watch, with rapt attention, his grandmother and uncle whip up a storm in their home kitchen in Ahmedabad — cooking Kerala feasts to world cuisine. Sriram started off by becoming their apprentice in the kitchen — chopping, marinating, stirring, and by the age of eight, he was a competent cook — creating dishes from his heritage or making pizza from scratch. Accompanying his uncle on business trips across the country opened his eyes to  gastronomical experiences such as an introduction to Thai, Chinese, Lebanese and Bengali cuisine among others. By the age of 13, Sriram decided that food was what he was passionate about and he made it his mission to know everything about what the culinary world had to offer.  

He kept honing his skills by cooking complicated recipes in the kitchen, creating some of his own and also learning along the way. After an engineering degree, a Masters in Internal Business took him to the South of France. During his course at Skema Business School and then while working in marketing at Golmund Sound Systems in Monaco, Sriram used every opportunity available to learn more about French regional cooking, travelling all over France and other European countries, staying with families and taking impromptu cooking lessons from host families on authentic recipes. 

Back in India in 2012, he took up the reins of his family business, but his mind was working overtime as to how to realise his dreams of actually progressing towards his passion — food. Finally in 2017, he decided to take the plunge and started his own cafe — Terra, (translates to ‘earth’), a grab-and-go healthy and fresh food format in Ahmedabad, inspired by the UK based chain Pret a Manger (ready-to-eat in French). The idea behind this format was to solve for the busy office goer who didn't have time for a sit-down meal. Terra introduced Ahmedabad to cold pressed juices, all natural smoothies, avocado toast and matcha among other things with all natural ingredients. 

In June 2019, Terra was relaunched to great reviews as a new full service, dine-in restaurant serving world cuisine like Filipino, Portuguese, and Colombian. It also became an incubation centre for experimenting with new cuisines and understanding whether a spin off brand would work or not. New dishes would be introduced in the special menu at Terra and valuable data including the response, pricing, taste, and value would be gleaned from it. Sriram also realised that more than customisations or customers actually visiting his cafe, the real business lay in deliveries and online orders. 

In 2020, the brand pivoted to a cloud kitchen business model — Terra Food Co — with a focus on niche cuisine not available in Tier 2 cities. Sriram learnt everything on the job — from sourcing from vendors, managing an efficient supply chain to creating menus and doing trials himself. TFC started introducing a new brand every month and in December 2020, Sushito, a modern pan aisan brand was introduced and quickly became a bestseller.