Why House of Neria?
House of Neria was born when we asked ourselves – how can more people have access to good-quality ingredients from farms like ours?
Over the last three years, it has evolved as a brand committed to bringing the best of natural produce and consumables to the discerning customer, who wants to know where their food comes from, and appreciates traditional processing without the use of additives.
Who are we?
We are Nandini and Kishan Hebbar, siblings and the fourth-generation in a family of agriculturists. Nandini has a PhD in Sociology and Kishan is a practicing musician with degrees in Law and Music Performance. We were building our respective careers in different cities, but struggled to find the same quality of food that we took for granted on our farm.
Our main inspiration is our father, Dr. G K Hebbar, an ENT surgeon, who got into farming at the age of 60.
Always a keen propagator of fitness, wellness and eating right, Dr. Hebbar began dedicating his weekends and savings to resurrecting the family's traditional plantation of coconut and areca. Influenced by the Natural Farming philosophy of Masanobu Fukoka, he has been working on restoring soil health through natural measures. These include the use of organic fertilisers such as farmyard manure, vermicompost, and mixed cropping as well as cultivating bees to accelerate pollination. Well into his 60s, he still walks the perimeter of the farm every weekend, overseeing every development. He is supported by his brother, Radhakrishna Hebbar who has more than 40 years of experience in farming, and introduced him to the tenets of good, scientific farming. Their holistic vision and love for the farm is the bedrock on which House of Neria is built.
Making good agriculture feasible
The traditional model of selling farm produce at wholesale prices is untenable if we are to stay committed to this model. The effects of climate change, migration of local labour to urban locations, and dumping of imported products into local markets by large corporations has made small-farm agriculture a difficult investment to sustain.
For us, the answer to keeping sustainable agriculture alive is simple – go directly to the customer who will appreciate the value system from which we come. The prospect of sharing the tastes and flavours with which we grew up excited us. We sketched a model to make harvest-driven, single source, small-batch produce available at the customer's doorstep.
In addition to our own produce, we have been working on developing other products from the farm and liaising with other small farmers to make spices, natural sweeteners and traditional beverages such as Ragi Malt and Filter Coffee available on all our platforms.
What are our plans?
The vision for House of Neria is simple: a one-stop platform for any customer looking for gourmet, traditionally grown and processed agro-produce coming to their doorstep.