Meet Aliza

Food has always been a central point in my family. 

My father ran a juice, jam and chutney business in Sri Lanka called Seville, and some of my earliest memories are of hanging around the factory. I inherited my love of marmalade from Daddy. During orange season he'd buy an entire crop from a trusted grower, and I still remember the little white van arriving back loaded with fruit.

Then there were the mango days.

The smell hit you before you even saw them. Daddy taught me how to choose a good mango. You smell it at the top, where it came away from the stem. If it smells gloriously of mango, you're onto a winner. If it smells of absolutely nothing, put it back and choose another one.

I spent hours at the factory. We stirred pots, added sugar and learned by doing. Looking back, I realise I learned a lot about ingredients without ever thinking of it as learning.

Food sat at the centre of family life too.

Mum cooked Sunday lunches of roast chicken falling off the bone with potatoes. My grandparents' house was filled with chapatis, curries and biryani on special occasions. My grandmother's chapatis, spread with butter and sugar and rolled up while still hot, remain one of my favourite food memories. They are now one of my children's favourites too. Cheeni chapati is what we called them. 

As a child, I ate rice and curry almost every day. At the time, I would have happily swapped it for something else. Looking back, I realise how lucky I was.

Years later, living in the UK and raising my own family, I found myself wanting to pass some of that on. Not necessarily rice and curry every day, but the idea that cooking from scratch doesn't have to be difficult.

Little Big Flavour Kits began during COVID.

I'd stepped away from my work and knew I didn't want to go back, but I wasn't entirely sure what came next. I remember walking with my friend Penny and saying that I needed something to do before I drove myself mad.

At the same time, we were all cooking. Every day. And many of us were getting rather tired of our own food.

So I started making little spice pots for friends and family. Nothing fancy. Just carefully measured ingredients that made it easy to cook a really good curry at home.

The feedback was immediate.

People liked that they didn't need a cupboard full of spices. They liked that the chilli was separate so everyone could decide how much heat they wanted. They liked that the coconut milk was included and that someone had already done the hard work of balancing the flavours.

Many of the things that still define our kits today came directly from those early conversations with friends, family and the mums at the school gates.

What I love most now is meeting customers.

People rarely stop at a tasting table just to talk about food. Instead, they tell me stories. About a honeymoon in Sri Lanka. About grandparents who lived there. About a meal they still remember years later and almost always they talk about the food.

Everyone seems to have their own Sri Lanka.

If our kits help someone recreate a memory, discover a new flavour, or simply put a delicious meal on the table without stress, then we've done our job.