South Asian Heritage Month – Food as Heritage, Food as Future Panel – 22nd July 2026

South Asian Heritage Month Food Panel

Food as Heritage, Food as Future : What South Asian Food Traditions Can Teach Us About Building Better Food Systems

As food systems face intensifying pressure from climate change, biodiversity loss and growing health inequities, policymakers and practitioners are increasingly searching for models that can deliver healthier, more resilient and more equitable outcomes at scale.

This panel, presented as part of South Asian Heritage Month, will explore how South Asian food traditions offer valuable insights for the future of food systems. Through centuries of cultural exchange, adaptation and resourcefulness, South Asian cuisines have developed approaches to nutrition, plant-based eating, ingredient diversity and food stewardship that remain highly relevant today.

Taking inspiration from the South Asian Heritage Month theme of connection, movement and cultural exchange, the discussion will examine how recipes, ingredients and food knowledge travel across borders, shaping identities while offering practical lessons for a more sustainable future.

The event will bring together experts from food systems, nutrition, culinary heritage, sustainability and public health to discuss how food can be treated as a central lever for building healthier, more resilient and more equitable systems at scale.

Meet our panellists

Sohini Banerjee is the founder of Smoke and Lime, a supper club born in a one-bedroom flat in North London and dedicated to keeping the cooking traditions of Bengali matriarchs alive at a communal table.

Smoke and Lime was built on a founding belief that food is memory and practice of intuition. Sohini’s menus draw directly from the distinct recipes passed down through the houses of Kolkata’s matriarchs, dishes shaped by centuries of colonial influence, periods of famine in Bengal, and the quiet genius of home cooks who wasted nothing and flavoured everything. That zero-waste ethos is not a trend for Sohini; it is the backbone of Bengali cooking itself, and it sits at the heart of everything she does.

The supper clubs are designed to feel like coming home. Guests sit together, eat family style, and find themselves in conversations that stretch long past the last plate. Sohini’s mission is to show that zero-waste cooking is not about restriction; it is about creativity, generosity and joy. Every dish tells a story. Every shared table builds a community.

Saliha Khan Sadozai is a Pakistani chef, writer, and founder of Third Culture Kat, a food and heritage platform that brings people together through supper clubs, events, and artisanal condiments.

Her culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu London, alongside her roots in farming and a background in education and politics, shapes her approach to food as a gateway into wider conversations around history, migration, identity, agriculture, and community. Through storytelling, research, and shared meals, she uncovers the connections between people, place, and culture, championing the often-overlooked stories that shape the world around us.

Lorna Nanda is the founder and owner of Lorna’s Indian Kitchen and Cookery School, based in Woking, Surrey, specialising in the food of her North Indian and Punjabi heritage. A corporate escapee from the world of Telecoms, Lorna turned a lifelong passion for authentic home cooking into an award-winning food business. She is a Great Taste Producer with the Guild of Fine Food and, since 2025, a Great Taste Judge. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Stylist Magazine and across BBC TV and radio.

A passionate advocate for the provenance of food, Lorna cooks with a firm farm-to-fork ethos, using seasonal, locally sourced and free-range produce. She believes that South Asian food traditions carry deep knowledge about whole-ingredient cooking, spice, seasonality and resourcefulness that modern food systems would do well to learn from.

Many will recognise Lorna as the winner of the launch series of The Big Family Cooking Showdown on BBC Two (now available on Netflix), where she brought “ghar ka khana” — real, home-style Indian cooking — to a national audience. Through her cookery school, farmers market stalls, pop-ups and corporate events, she shares the depth and diversity of traditional Punjabi family recipes with food lovers across Surrey, London and beyond.

Moderated by Mex Ibrahim  co-founder of Women In The Food Industry & Catherine Archer founder of Brand Archery who are Community Champions for The Conduit’s Food Systems Community Group.

AGENDA

6:00pm: Welcome and introduction

6:10pm: Panel discussion

7:10pm: Workshops & networking. A cash bar is available

8:00pm: Event ends

How to register and apply for Food as Heritage, Food as Future Tickets

Conduit Members can register through the app here.

If you are not yet a member of The Conduit – please apply to join the waiting list for limited tickets here.  We will let you know when more tickets are released.