Meghna Chettri turns entrepreneur, launches Amã Foods for GI-tagged, slow-farmed produce

Meghna Chettri, the award-winning digital marketer famed for her work at ICICI Bank and State Bank of India, with a 15-year career that also spans Accenture and Cognizant, has founded Amã Foods, a Shillong, Meghalaya registered brand launching this month with a single idea: that India's finest ingredients already exist, are already protected by law, and have simply never been put in front of the people who would pay for them. The brand sells Geographical Indication (GI) tagged foods, grown slowly by farmer collectives in their place of origin, under the line "The Origin of Purity".

The launch range leads with Lakadong Turmeric from Meghalaya's Jaintia Hills, prized for its high curcumin content, and Chakhao Black Rice from Manipur, alongside Makhana and a small premium tea. Every pack is sourced from a farmer producer organisation (FPO) in the product's home district, lab-tested per batch, and sold under the GI name only where Amã holds authorised-user rights. The range is open for pre-order now through Instagram at @amaorigin. Amazon, Flipkart and the brand's own site, amaorigins.com, go live in December 2026, shipping pan-India.

From April 2027, Amã adds two GI products a month, taking the range to 30 byApril 2028: Naga Mircha, Kashmir Saffron, Sundarban Honey, Byadagi Chilli, Coorg Green Cardamom, Sikkim Large Cardamom, Malabar Pepper, Koraput Kalajeera Rice and others, each sourced from its home district.

A GI tag is a legal certificate of origin: it ties a product's name to the place and the method that made it, the way Darjeeling tea or Champagne are protected. India has registered hundreds of food GIs, most of them farmed by small growers in districts far from the cities that could pay a premium for them. Amã exists to close that gap: buy from the FPO at origin, pack it with the GI story intact, and sell it where the demand is.

"I grew up in Shillong watching Lakadong turmeric leave the Jaintia Hills in sacks with no name on them, to be blended into something ordinary somewhere else," said Meghna Chettri, Founder, Amã Foods. "The farmer gets a commodity price for a product that is, by law, one of the best in the world. Amã is built to change that equation. We buy at origin, we keep the name on the pack, and we put it on the same shelf as the imported brands it beats."

"We are starting with four products and the discipline to earn each new one. Every product on amaorigins.com will have been lab-tested, GI-verified and bought directly from the collective that grew it. That is the whole brand."

A Meghalaya native, Chettri has registered Amã Foods in Shillong and runs it from a corporate office in Lower Parel, Mumbai. The supply chain is built around written agreements with farmer producer organisations in Meghalaya, Manipur and Darjeeling, with the FPOs storing the harvest and dispatching monthly.