Celebrating the success stories of local women food producers: Jasmine Mangalaseril

For years, the world of food has mainly focused on male chefs, owners, and innovators. Although women are now increasingly becoming part of the conversation, their accomplishments can still often be ignored.

While the food processing industry's leadership is dominated by men, women are also founding companies that stock grocery store shelves and supply restaurants. Waterloo-Wellington is home to two such innovative female founders.

Green Goddess Fromagerie

After screening positive for the BRCA1 gene, a genetic counsellor recommended Guelph's Morgan Mitchell eliminate meat from her diet. Dairy cheese was what she missed most. So, the biochemist began culturing nuts in her home kitchen.

Within six months, she created a tasty alternative to the starch-and-oil dairy cheese substitutes available at the time.

Through encouragement from friends and family Mitchell launched Green Goddess in 2018, initially supplying the food service industry. Now, her products are in about 200 retailers across Ontario, available online, and in her factory store in Guelph.

"The thing that makes Green Goddess different than other vegan cheeses is that it's not highly processed," explained Mitchell. "Everything has eight or fewer ingredients. Everything is fermented or cultured. It's all rack aged."

Green Goddess now processes roughly 19 metric tonnes of organic Grenadian and Brazilian cashews yearly, into 17 distinct artisan vegan cheeses made with proprietary vegan cultures. Along with goat-style cheeses and cheese balls, Mitchell makes the world's only commercially available vegan marble cheddar and an internationally award-winning vegan halloumi. Cheese making's whey is made into dips, making their production net zero.

Beck's Broth

Becky Prime's career as a bone broth maker began as a solution to her clients' needs. The Kitchener product marketer turned holistic nutritionist recommended the nutrient-rich broth to her clients. Many struggled to include it in their diet, but kept their daily Starbucks habit. The answer was to make bone broth taste like coffee.

She launched Beck's Broth about three years ago, as liquid broth. She now sells sachets of powdered bone broth in three flavours, matcha, instant coffee, and hot chocolate, in about 300 shops across Canada and online.

"I knew right from the beginning that if I wanted to grow... we needed a shelf-stable product that was lightweight," said Prime. "From start to finish, that whole project was about nine months trying to put the puzzle pieces together."

That meant moving from a kitchen to a co-packer and redesigning her product while keeping principles in place. Her organic, non-GMO bone broth powder is sourced from New Zealand. A small organic family farm in Cameroon supplies cacao. A producer from Elmira supplies maple syrup.

'Leap and the net will appear'

Neither woman saw themselves as entrepreneurial material.

But after a friend's yoga day for entrepreneurs, Prime began to think differently.

"One woman said, 'just leap and the net will appear.' That has been in my head every single day since," Prime said.

Mitchell jokes that Green Goddess is the business she accidentally started in her kitchen.

"And [it] got out of hand. But we're way out of hand now. So being my own boss or even really anyone else's boss, it kind of seems like a ridiculous concept in my head," Mitchell said.

As with many woman-founded companies, their teams are either entirely or mostly made up of women.

Both began as self-funded ventures, without business partners, but further growth and expansion require capital.

"I think there are a number of female founders in food manufacturing, but the cost of entry to get to national distribution is enormous," said Mitchell, noting access to funding isn't equal for male and female founders.

According to the Smith School of Business at Queen's University, women founders own 21 per cent of Canadian businesses, only four per cent receive venture capital funding. 

They're aware of how a wrong deal, with the wrong people can change their company's direction and integrity. As they mull their next growth stages, they're also considering how to protect what they've built. In part, their growth and success are attributed to networking.  Both entrepreneurs reach out for advice from how to solve a packaging problem or to recommendations for experts to work with.

Prime also shares her company's journey with the community that's being forged.

"They see the work we're putting in and they're like, 'Wow. Yeah, I'm going to vote with my dollar and I'm going to vote for them to win.'"

LISTEN | These local female-founded companies are stocking shelves across the province: Jasmine Mangalaseril

The Morning Edition - K-W6:56These local female-founded companies are stocking shelves across the province: Jasmine Mangalaseril

More and more, female chefs are being recognized for their skills in hospitality. But one area that is still dominated by men is food production. We have several local female founders who are stocking grocery store shelves across the province and the country.