Diwali boxes for your Telangana & Andhra team

What's added at each tier

Prices per box, ex-GST. 5% off 50+ boxes, 10% off 200+. See all tiers.

The hands behind the food

The people and towns that make what's inside, so your team knows where it all comes from.

In the Telangana & Andhra Special

Atreyapuram putharekulu · Atreyapuram, East Godavari

Paper-thin sheets, made one at a time over a hot pot

In Atreyapuram, women make paper-thin rice sheets one at a time over a specially heated inverted pot, and PARI reports one maker, Vijaya, making 90-100 sheets an hour. The sheets are then rolled by hand with ghee and sugar or jaggery. The sweet got its GI tag in 2023, but PARI found the makers' wages have barely changed.

Bandar laddu · Machilipatnam (Bandar)

A GI-tagged laddu with a centuries-old migrant story

Locals in Machilipatnam told BBC Telugu that Bondili families who migrated from Bundelkhand began making Bandar laddu, and the laddu already holds a Geographical Indication certificate. Street Byte's visit to Vani Sweets shows it is a tedious, many-step process, from frying besan boondi to pounding it with jaggery and ghee.

Kakinada kaja · Kakinada

Layered dough, fried, then soaked in syrup

Street Byte shows how Kakinada's gottam kaja is made: dough is rolled into tube shapes and fried until crisp, then soaked in sugar syrup. The sweet is the town's pride, and Kotaiah's is the name most associated with it.

In the Classic Indian box

Kaju katli & besan laddoo (mithai) · Shahdara, Delhi

Cashew paste, a giant kadhai, and a halwai who never stops stirring

At Hiralal Halwai in Shahdara, Delhi, kaju katli is made in huge batches: cashew paste is cooked down in a wide kadhai and worked by hand until it can be rolled thin and cut into diamonds. The same halwai craft, with roasted besan and ghee instead of cashew, gives the besan laddoo in your box.

Almonds (Kashmir) · Newa, Pulwama, Kashmir

The almond harvest still begins with a stick and a tarpaulin

In Newa, Pulwama, almonds are still harvested by hand: families beat the branches with sticks and catch the nuts on tarpaulins spread beneath the trees. Only then do machines strip away the green outer cover, as Kashmir Life's film shows.

Cashews (processing) · Andhra Pradesh / India

Every white cashew passed through a worker's hands

Before a cashew turns white and crunchy it is roasted, shelled and peeled, much of it by hand, and BBC Telugu follows how tonnes of raw nuts are processed every day in Andhra Pradesh. France 24 reports that this work, done largely by women, is often painful, because the shell oil burns the skin.

We buy from makers in these towns in the open market, close to Diwali. We name a specific shop, family or group as a partner only once they've agreed to be featured.