More often than not, when you start exploring a culture’s culinary identity, one of the first things you should look at is its ferments. The sharp funk of Korean kimchi, the umami-laden miso from Japan, tart and creamy kefir prevalent across eastern Europe and the complex depth of axone from Nagaland—each of these shine the spotlight on how the process of fermentation has shaped food, identity and culture in communities for millennia.
Today, this age-old process is driving a multibillion dollar wellness industry across the world. A recent report by market research firm Mordor Intelligence pegged the value of the fermented foods and beverages market at USD 298.90 billion in 2025, which is expected to reach USD 434.60 billion by 2031. The driving forces include a rising consumer focus on digestive health, with a growing preference for foods that naturally promote gut wellness. “Asia-Pacific leads in both consumption and growth, supported by its deep-rooted fermentation traditions and changing lifestyles,” it states.
However, confining one’s view simply to the market dynamics does this complex process of fermentation a disservice. There are so many layers to it—experimentation, sustainability, preservation of flavour, history, politics, identity, enterprise and more. An upcoming online fermentation conference, Desi Cultures, seeks to excavate each of these layers deeply. A week-long programme, to be held virtually between 18-26 July, brings together fermentation practitioners, chefs, makers, researchers, historians, and food thinkers from across India and beyond.
Founded by food researcher-filmmaker Shubhra Chatterji during the covid-19 pandemic, the first edition of the conference was held in 2020. During that period of isolation, the online gathering offered both knowledge and succour as you could connect with likeminded people from across the country on food and history. That was a time when, confined to our homes, a lot of us had started exploring sourdough cultures, fruit wine making methods and ferments from across India, and the conference had come at just the right time.
Fast forward to 2026 and there has been a massive change in the way we perceive and approach fermentation both at home and on a larger scale in restaurants and F&B enterprises. While the consumers have moved beyond kombuchas and sourdoughs to look at hyperlocal cultures, young enterprises are innovating with flavour profiles backed by rigorous research and development. To mirror these changes, the second edition of Desi Cultures, co-curated by Chatterji and Payal Shah of Kobo Fermentery asks the question: What can fermentation knowledge, practices, and innovations from the Indian subcontinent contribute to the future of food and culture globally?
A VARIED PERSPECTIVE
The conference looks at the process through three different lenses—regional, traditional and the innovative. Even with the growing conversation around fermentation, so many traditions from the Indian subcontinent lie undocumented. Are there ways in which these fragmented traditions can be connected to the global discourse? Desi Cultures hopes to look at the future of the field from such diverse perspectives. “What lies beyond kombuchas and sourdoughs? This year, we have decided to look at some of the global ferments that we have made our own. How are we using those to develop cheese, coffee and cacao in India? While the first edition had a distinct India focus, the upcoming one broadens the conversation by linking the regional with the global,” says Shivani Unakar, who has produced the 2026 edition with Elizabeth Yorke of Edible Issues.
The enterprise segment of Desi Cultures is quite fascinating. One of the talks, Ferments at Scale, looks at what it takes to build a business through fermentation. Namrata Sundaresan of Chennai-based Käse cheese, Marc Tormo Altimira, co-founder, Coffee Ideas and Hansel Vaz, founder of Cazulo Premium Feni and Fazenda Cazulo, discuss emerging fermentation technologies and the challenges of bringing fermented products to market—from the sourcing and consistency to flavour development, quality control and storytelling. The session will allow a deeply human look into enterprise-building as Sundaresan brings to fore her experience of working with pastoral communities and Vaz about reviving Goa’s feni culture. The latter will also talk about the kind of utensils that have traditionally been used in that region and the kind of microbes that reside within them.
In another session, Experimental Cultures, Prachet Sancheti, founder, Brown Koji Boy and Chef Gayatri Desai, who runs the fermentary and flavour lab, Ground Up in Pune, will discuss ways of applying Koji-based techniques to the Indian context. “So, the idea is to look at ‘fermentation at scale’—how our businesses work with different microbes for consistency but also for experimentation,” elaborates Unakar. “A lot of bars and restaurants are leaning into fermentation as a tool to push boundaries with local seasonal produce. But there are also fermentation-focused brands that have extended the scope of conversation. They are trying to achieve flavour and quality using specific processes that they champion, or by applying those processes to Indian substrates.” Take, for instance, fermentation in coffee estates, which has emerged as a major topic of conversation in recent years. Unakar believes that this subject—what really happens to the coffee bean when it is fermented—still requires a certain amount of demystification both within the industry and with the consumer.
OVERLOOKED NARRATIVES
This year’s conference also spotlights underrepresented regional traditions and microbial knowledge systems from Western Himalayas and North East India, with special focus on Sikkim. One of the highlights is the session, North East Ferments: Practice & Place, by Dr Hissay Doma Lepcha, a veterinarian by profession and a chronicler of Sikkim’s culinary traditions by passion. Her social media handle, Kitchen Salubrious, is a treasure trove of her family’s rich food heritage and she packs her videos with tips, insights, recipes and unique storytelling. My favourite is her simplified recipe of gundruk ko jhol made with fermented leafy greens. This is her go-to dish whenever she wants to reset her gut or as a light accompaniment to heavy meals. At Desi Cultures, she will dwell on the connection between fermentation, ecology and regional identity in Sikkim.
The conference also looks at traditional expressions of fermentation and how they have travelled through time and place. So, food researcher and home fermenter, Vasunthara Ramasamy, explores how fermentation traditions from southern India have travelled across the borders through trade, migration and cultural exchange. “She is based out of Singapore and travels across southeast Asia to understand how these traditions continue to shape diasporic food identities,” says Unakar. In another session, Archaeology of Fermentation, archaeologist and culinary anthropologist Kurush Dalal examines archaeological evidence from across the world to understand how fermentation shaped ancient civilisations. The conference is bookended by two keynote sessions—Fermentation as practice, pedagogy and food justice by Dolly Kikon, a Naga anthropologist who has worked extensively on indigenous food sovereignty and fermentation as a sustainable practice, and Desi ferments through a global lens by fermentation educator Kirsten K. Shockey.
To me, one of the most pertinent sessions is on the politics of fermentation and how it is linked to identity and power in daily life. Artists Rahee Punyashloka and Bao—both of whom work at the intersection of caste, gender and politics—look at how fermented foods interact with notions of smell, purity, space, gender and labour in India. Some years ago, the film Axone by Nicholas Kharkongor had touched upon something similar by using the fermented soy paste from Nagaland as a lens to look at how young students from the North East negotiated food, culture and identity in a new city. Does this new city ever embrace them into its fold or does the inherent stereotype and bias come in the way? In the film, the two flatmates from Manipur and Nepal spend the day trying to find a spot to cook meat with axone in a way that the pungent aroma does not reach the neighbours. through research, case studies and lived experiences. In this session, Punyashloka and Bao take this complex conversation forward as they unpack the “social and cultural meanings embedded in fermentation, revealing how microbes and their makers negotiate boundaries and challenge identities in the spaces they inhabit.”