‘Devastating’: What 7 months of tariffs have done to one promising local business

Just before President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs took effect this spring, Sana Javeri Kadri, the founder and CEO of Diaspora Spice Co. (opens in new tab), debated cutting short a vacation in Seoul, South Korea ahead of the impending economic whirlwind. 

Instead, “I chose to stay on my trip and not deal with it,” she said. “I live to regret that.” 

Diaspora has become a cult favorite in chef and culinary circles (for example, former “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi is a fan (opens in new tab)) for its spices and blends sourced from small family farms in India and Sri Lanka, both of which were hit with sky-high tariffs. While the tax on Sri Lankan imports lowered after several months, tariffs on Indian imports increased and now remain at 50%. Like many Bay Area small businesses (and San Francisco itself), Diaspora has struggled to cope with the increased costs. 

In retrospect, Kadri wishes she had urged customers to stock up before the tariffs went into effect so that the company could “hoard a bunch of cash to help us survive,” she said. She then could have raised prices to offset the new fees. Instead, the company opted to “keep eating the cost ourselves” for months, hoping policies would change. She did, eventually, have to raise prices about 12% this fall (opens in new tab), explaining in an Instagram story that the hikes would help her company survive even though they were not nearly enough to cover losses from the tariffs.  

“We realized that it was not viable and that we would go out of business if we tried to eat it any longer,” she said. “We were going to be profitable this year, but we’ve now paid about $250,000 in tariffs so far. It’s money that we never expected to have to spend. Now, we are not going to be even remotely profitable. It’s been devastating.” 

Since Kadri started Diaspora in 2017 (opens in new tab), she’s expanded from selling only turmeric to distributing dozens of single-origin spices and spice blends. The company’s goal is to source high-quality, fresh ingredients while paying farmers a premium over what they’d receive from commodity markets (opens in new tab) (these days, Diaspora is paying around four times the market price). Kadri, who founded the company in Oakland and now lives in Menlo Park, has expanded the company to 26 employees, including 18 in India, where Diaspora runs its test kitchen and where she spends about three months every year. 

Kadri said the tariffs “took a wrecking ball” to the company’s finances, causing it to drain its cash reserves and draw down a preexisting line of credit. She has watched both her company and her customers suffer. Inflation climbed to 3% (opens in new tab) in September and food prices have generally increased (opens in new tab). “Your rising grocery bill is linked to international foreign policy, to disagreements between America, India, and Russia about steel and oil,” she said.

Of course, this is Donald Trump’s America, and everything is subject to constant change. After extended negotiations, India is apparently on the brink of a new trade deal (opens in new tab) with the U.S., which could lower the tariffs on Indian exports from 50% to 15% (opens in new tab). 

“That would just be a huge weight off my chest,” Kadri said. “We just really hope that our leaders come to their senses before it’s too late for us.” 

For Diaspora customers, including Bay Area chefs and retailers who stock its goods, the spice company’s price increase hasn’t halted their purchases. 

Hetal Vasavada, a Bay Area baker and cookbook author (opens in new tab) who has bought Diaspora’s products since the beginning, said she’s hooked on the superior quality — and ethics — of the company’s spices. She prefers the taste and appreciates that Diaspora supports Indian farmers (something particularly close to her heart since she has relatives in the country who harvest cumin and coriander). 

“The trust is there, for me, so I’d rather pay them a bit more than go with something else,” Vasavada said. “Spices can really make the dish. And with them, you don’t need as much to get the flavor payoff.” 

To combat rising prices, she’s tried to modify her recipes to be more conscious of ingredient quantity. “A lot of people say food’s not political, but it definitely is,” she said. 

Optimistic about negotiations between India and the U.S., Kadri is setting her sights on new opportunities in 2026. She plans to open a brick-and-mortar Diaspora location in San Francisco; experiment with other products, like lentils and rice, from her farm partners; and start a new round of fundraising. 

To date, Diaspora has raised about $2 million from angel investors like Tyler Malek of Salt & Straw ice cream and Ben Jacobsen, who runs Jacobsen Salt Co., and plans to continue eschewing venture capital or private equity during her funding round. 

First, though, she has to make it through the holiday season. Diaspora typically makes 40% to 50% of its sales in the last two months of the year — and she’s praying that trend continues, despite the economic turmoil. Given the current climate for small and local purveyors, she urges people to patronize those businesses as much as possible this year. 

“This holiday season honestly feels make-or-break for so many small companies,” she said. “Shopping indie has always been important, but this year more than ever.”