How did your journey of nutritional and healthy food begin? And what lead you to starting your business, Laroot?

My journey began when I was born. I grew up in a household where traditional nutrition was really important, so it was kind of just the way I ate. When I launched Laroot, it was because I felt like there was something missing. There were all these more medical companies that give you powders and things like that. Laroot delivers nutritious, high quality food that is convenient, but also really good, as opposed to being one or the other.

What have been some of the challenges that you encountered along your way? And how did you overcome these?

The main challenge in the food business is logistics and the only way to overcome it is to have an incredible team.

Do you do any specic wellness rituals which empower your spirit your practice?

I meditate every day.

Can you tell us about your favourite kind of dish you make? What are your key ingredients that you use?

One of my favourite dishes, and we offer it on our menu as well, is the Iranian Ash (Laroot Name: The Nowruz Āsh). It is a soup eaten on the Persian new year, Nowruz. I find the soup to be the most nourishing, healthy, and filling combination of texture and flavor and ingredients. Every time after I eat it, I just feel wholesome and healthy.

When did you realise your love for nutrients and food, and how did this inspire your company?

I’ve always had it, it’s something inherent in me. It has inspired my company because it’s a total extension of who I am. This is all I care about - having delicious, good for you nutrition, is an extension of who I am, effectively.

What are some of your favourite ancestral practices you have used throughout your work?

I would say all of our work is rooted in ancestral practice, herbal medicine is an ancestral practice that has been validated in modern times by scientific research, each plant we work with is backed by thousands of years of traditional use worldwide with significant history in the Arab region dating back to the times of Ibn Sina (980-1037CE).

Can you tell us a bit about the links between food and wellness and what that means to Laroot?

Food is wellness. Eating good, nutritious food is the ultimate pathway to wellness before anything else. In terms of the way that I think about wellness with Laroot - there's so many kinds of different doctors, different systems and different medical prowess on how to eat well. I thought - if you take the most important ones and you combine them, and wherever they agree on - that is what is really good factually. I took a western medicine doctor, a nutritionist, an Ayurvedic doctor, and a Chinese medicine doctor, and made food that is organic, local and gluten-free.

Which authors, books or creatives have inuenced your practice?

We are inspired by the matriarchs of our family, whose recipes and the love language that is food connects us. Books that inspire Laroot are Eating From Our Roots by Maya Feller and In Bibi’s Kitchen by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen.

Could you tell us a bit about where the name Laroot came from?

The name Laroot came from the idea of roots that are all interconnected in the forest. What happens in the forest is that all the trees on the surface look different. Visually, they can have not much to do with each other, but under the surface, they are all interconnected by their roots. The name Laroot comes from the idea that all these medicinal knowledge points are completely interconnected with each other, even if they come from different cultures and places. The same thing with food, traditional nutrition knowledge is the same, interconnected to help each other the way the roots are under the surface of the forest. Also, it's kind of a play on “la route.” Route in French is road, so the idea of “on the road”. That's the whole discovery thing, how you get to discover different dishes from different places.

Tell us about how sustainability is important to you and the company?

That's a good one. Sustainability is important to us in every possible aspect. We think of sustainability as not something that's extra, it's something that’s inherent to the business. It's not even something that we feel the need to say “we're sustainable”, because we are so sustainable. It's like a normal situation. It's not an extra situation. Having said that, concrete ways in which we're sustainable come from four points. First, all of our food is locally sourced. Second, is that we never ship. So for us to expand, let's say into different areas of the country, we would open kitchens in different areas of the country. We would not be using FedEx to ship your food with ice. Thirdly, all our food containers are returnable. They have a lifetime on average of 10 uses or more, and they are made out of glass. We also use fully compostable containers where we cannot use the glass ones. Last but not least - any remaining ingredients we give to community fridges.

What is next for Laroot?

We are concentrating on creating new fulfilling menus for people who need flavourful and nutritious food the most, with a focus on those getting over health concerns.