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Our Farmers
Velan Foods exists because of a gap: excellent rice grown in South India, and Indian families in America who could not reliably buy it. We closed the gap by taking the brokers out.
Where it grows
The Cauvery delta has been growing rice for two thousand years
The Cauvery river drops out of the Western Ghats, crosses South India and fans out into a silt plain around Thanjavur and Tiruchirappalli. Chola kings built irrigation channels across it in the ninth century; many are still running. The soil is alluvial and heavy, the water is reliable, and the region has been the rice bowl of South India for as long as anyone has written things down.
Every variety we sell comes from that plain. Ponni was bred there in the sixties. Seeraga Samba is a delta landrace — grown almost nowhere else, which is exactly why a real Ambur biryani is hard to make outside South India. This is not a marketing origin story. It is where the rice is from.
The supply chain, in full
Four steps. We are two of them.
A typical imported bag of rice passes through six or seven hands, each one taking a margin and none of them accountable for what is inside. We own the purchase at one end and the delivery at the other.
Step one · Thanjavur & Trichy
Paddy, at the farm gate
We buy unmilled paddy directly from growers after harvest, at a price agreed with the farmer rather than set by a commission agent. Lots are kept separate by village and season.
Step two · South India
Milled to order
Rice loses aroma sitting in a warehouse, so we mill against confirmed orders. Graded, colour-sorted and packed into 20 lb bags under the Vetri label, FSSAI licence 12426999000362.
Step three · Chennai to Newark
One container, one owner
Loaded in Chennai and shipped to the Port of New York and New Jersey. FDA prior notice, customs entry and duty are handled by our team — the bag is never opened or repacked in transit.
Step four · Plainsboro, New Jersey
Out to you
Stored in central New Jersey and shipped to households by ground, or to grocers by pallet. The bag you cut open is the bag that was sealed at the mill.
What that actually changes
Four things that follow from it
Harvest timing
A farmer paid fairly and paid promptly can wait for the right moisture instead of cutting early to settle a debt. Grain harvested at the right moment breaks less in the mill.
Single-origin lots
Because we buy village by village, a bag is one variety from one area in one season — not a blend pooled from wherever was cheapest that week.
Freshness
Milling to order means less time between the huller and your kitchen. For aromatic varieties like Seeraga Samba and Basmati, that difference is the whole product.
Accountability
Every bag carries a lot code that traces back to a mill run. If something is wrong, we can find out where it came from — and we replace it.
Who we are
Velan Foods LLC, Plainsboro, New Jersey
We are a family-run importer and distributor of Indian and South Asian groceries, operating out of central New Jersey. Vetri — vetri means victory — is our own rice label, packed for us in Chennai and sold only by us.
We sell direct to households across the continental United States, and wholesale to Indian and South Asian grocery stores, restaurants, caterers and temple kitchens. If you run one of those and want to carry Vetri, we would like to hear from you.
