In the early 2000s Supreme Creations was selling reusable bags and packaging made from cotton to small health food shops, and to forward-thinking sustainable companies like Mooncup, and Bodyshop which wanted alternatives to single-use plastic.

At the time Sri was also the largest wholesaler in Europe of a natural yarn called jute – a “golden fibre” which was used to form the backing of carpets, but could also be transformed into sacks, bags, and packaging…

It was however a chance encounter with the parents of two girls taking part in The Wings of Hope Achievement Awards, a charity co-founded by Dr R Sri Ram and his wife Rajni, that turned Supreme Creations from being a wholesale business to a major manufacturing one.

Two 14-year-old girls invited Sri and Rajni, as their “guests of honour”, to witness the launch of hundreds of balloons in central London, as part of their fundraising project for the Wings of Hope Children’s Charity.

During the photoshoot, the parents of one of the students thanked Sri and Rajni for giving their daughter the chance to be a young entrepreneur for a great cause and invited Sri to his offices that week for a coffee.

This chance meeting led Dr R. Sri Ram to be summoned by the Board of Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket (whom this parent happened to be associated with) to help lead an initiative on using new alternative materials to plastic.