How We Tackled the Problem of 11,000 Masala Packets a Year

Most people think Green Trails is about picking up litter on treks. And yes, that’s the visible part: trekkers bending down, filling up their Eco Bags, doing their bit for the mountains.

But Green Trails runs much deeper than that for Indiahikes. It isn’t a campaign or a weekend activity. It’s in our DNA, embedded at the core of how we think, work, and run Indiahikes every single day.

This story will show you what Green Trails truly means to us, and why it defines Indiahikes as one of the most sustainable trekking organisations in the country.

A Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

For several years now, a sustainability challenge has been troubling us: the problem of single-use masala packets.

At Indiahikes, we host nearly 1,000 trekkers each week and serve them three meals a day. Naturally, our kitchens use a wide variety and large volume of spices.

Here’s where the problem lies: most of these spices come in small 200 g or 500 g packets. We have tried procuring them in larger quantities, but manufacturers rarely go beyond 2–3 kg packs — nowhere close to our requirement of tens of kilos at a time.

What disturbs us most is that these packets are made of multilayered soft plastic: non-recyclable, non-biodegradable, and impossible to repurpose.

When we add it all up, the numbers are shocking. Just eight masalas we use in daily cooking generate nearly 11,000 packets a year.

If we could eliminate this waste at the source, it would be a big win for us.

A Failed Attempt at Loose Spices

Our first solution seemed simple: buy masalas in loose form, without packaging.

So in February 2025, we began procuring loose masalas from our vendor in Dehradun.

But this came with its own set of problems. The masalas turned out to be adulterated, and we had no control over their sources. What kind of chillies were being used? What kind of nutmegs? Was the jeera fresh enough?

We had also experimented with taking raw materials to a mill and getting them ground. That didn’t get us far either; it required us to spend hours, sometimes even days, at the mill every month. Without our supervision, adulteration crept in here as well.

For us, food quality and trekkers’ health are non-negotiable. Lower-grade, adulterated masalas were never an option. And to make matters worse, even bulk masalas arrived in large plastic-lined bags, again defeating the purpose.

We were stuck between two bad choices: good quality but unsustainable packets, or bulk but poor quality.

That’s when our founder posed an unusual question: “Why don’t we make our own masalas?”

A Radical Thought: Make Our Own Masalas

The thought rattled us. After all, we are not a restaurant. We are a trekking organisation. We don’t run kitchens; we run treks. We don’t have professional chefs and cooks. We have mountain folk trained to cook for our trekkers.

Making masalas from scratch meant buying raw ingredients, sun-drying them, roasting them, grinding them, and not in home-style quantities, but in massive volumes of 20–30 kilos each. It seemed unthinkable.

And yet, the idea kept resurfacing. Because at the end of the day, both quality and sustainability were suffering. And those are values we could not compromise.

So we decided to take the plunge.

We invested in a small grinder. Our Head of Food Experience at Indiahikes, Debadrita Ghosh, moved to Dehradun for two weeks.

Her first experiment was with jeera. “I went to the market and hand-picked the jeera myself. There are at least five varieties, and their quality varies vastly. After a close quality check, I bought some jeera,” she recalls.

After roasting and grinding it, the difference was immediate. “The colours were so different. The aroma was incredibly different. There was a freshness and purity in the one we ground versus the store-bought jeera,” she says.

With that success, she converted our office into a masala-making unit.

Two Weeks in the Indiahikes Masala Factory

Every day, Debadrita, along with Deepu and Veerendar, two of our staff members, went to our trusted vendor to handpick chillies, coriander, turmeric, and jeera, always choosing only the best. They cracked open nutmegs to test their freshness, sampled different varieties of red chillies, and rejected anything that didn’t meet the mark.

Back at the office, they spent hours on the roof sun-drying ingredients, because nothing matches the quality that sunlight brings. But the mountain sun was often elusive, and when the rains persisted, they turned to roasting. “Each spice needs a different level of roasting. You can’t underdo it, you can’t overdo it, even a small slip changes the flavour,” Debadrita explains.

So, patiently, our team roasted cinnamon, fennel, fenugreek seeds, turmeric sticks, star anise, coriander seeds, nutmeg, bay leaves, cloves, mace, peppercorns, green & black cardamom, mustard seeds, Bengal gram, black gram, dried mint, and several other spices.

Each of them went into the grinder, little by little, until we got some fantastic masalas for our cooking.

By the end of two weeks, our team had prepared enough masalas to last through September, along with special blends like ginger tea, masala tea, chole masala, and sambar powder.

The entire office was steeped in fragrance. For days, everyone carried the aroma of fresh spices on their clothes. 

Each masala was shipped in airtight containers to all our slopes, labelled and sealed, eliminating single-use plastic completely.

And the results were extraordinary.

The Results: Better Food, Less Waste

First, the quality improved tenfold. The chilli powder was actually blood red, not adulterated. The coriander and jeera were pure. We could proudly say this was food we’d serve to our own parents and children.

Second, freshness was unmatched. We would now be making fresh spices every month. No preservatives.

Third, consistency across all slopes. Whether you trek with us in Uttarakhand, Himachal, or Central India, you will now taste the same Indiahikes food. This consistency was impossible earlier.

And of course, the environmental impact was massive. We had successfully eliminated 11,000 single-use packets. Nobody thanks us for this, except the mountains. But that’s enough.

Trekking With Purpose

For us, this project is a milestone, as significant as when we first introduced bio-toilets on our slopes years ago. Back then, we spent months experimenting with composting methods and carbon sources before arriving at a sustainable solution. Today, those bio-toilets are an inseparable part of our treks, quietly protecting the environment at high altitudes.

This masala initiative is cut from the same cloth. It may look small on the surface, but it will leave a lasting impact on the way we trek and cook in the outdoors.

So when you trek with Indiahikes, know that you are part of this effort. Every meal you eat is cooked with spices that we source, sun-dry, roast, grind, and blend ourselves. Each bite carries not just flavour, but also a commitment to your health, to quality food, and to the mountains we want to preserve.

And this is only one story. Behind the scenes, we’re experimenting with many more ideas — some already successful, others still in progress. For instance, we have eliminated paneer that comes in plastic packaging. Now, we procure it in bulk, store it in our own cold-storage boxes, and transport it to our slopes. No plastic in any of this process.

We’re also working on alternatives for sauces, pasta, and noodles, which almost always come wrapped in plastic — exploring ways to source them without compromising hygiene or quality.

If you have ideas or suggestions on how we can reduce our impact further, we would love to hear from you. Because Green Trails is not a project on the side. It is a shared journey that every trekker at Indiahikes contributes to.