How Black entrepreneurs are shaping the local food industry: Jasmine Mangalaseril
From catering to farming to retail, these Black-owned businesses are worth checking out
Whether they're nurturing a new generation of farmers, continuing a legacy, creating new flavours or making it easier to find tastes of home, Waterloo-Wellington's Black food entrepreneurs are helping to shape our food scene.
Chef Kevin Thomas, owner of Big Jerk in Kitchener, continues his parents' traditions through his food truck and catering.
His parents, Jim and Lucinda Nicholas, were part of the Waterloo region food scene from the 1970s onwards, cooking Jamaican food for dignitaries like Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, provincial premiers, and Olympian Donovan Bailey.
After Jim's passing Thomas took to the stove.
"It'd be a shame to just close up shop," recalled Thomas. "He left a legacy with all his recipes."
Thomas uses his father's equipment to make Jamaican patties, but many Canadians shy away from dishes like oxtail and cow foot soup.
To help bring Jamaican flavours to the mainstream, Liam Cameron of Crazy Canuck, suggested tempering the jerk sauce's heat, combining it with chicken, cheese curds, and fries to create Jerk Chicken Poutine.
Jerk Chicken Tacos, another fan favourite, were suggested by Thomas's wife, Brenda, melding her Nicaraguan heritage with his Jamaican heritage.
"He'd be like, 'What? You can't do that with the jerk chicken!'" laughed Thomas as he mimicked his father's accent. "Being a businessman and entrepreneur, I'm sure he'd be happy to see that's how we [made that] shift."
Here are three other Black-owned restaurants to check out:
- Café du Monde in Cambridge.
- Muya Restaurant in Kitchener.
- Shine Family Restaurant in Guelph.
Bringing sweet to the heat
An article about vodka spurred Chef Malcolm Henry to make sweet potato-based hot sauces.
"I think if somebody can use potato to create vodka, why can't I use potato to do something, except for French fries, mashed potato, soup?" said Henry. "So, that's when I decided, I'm going to use [sweet potatoes] to create the hot sauce."
Henry bottles three hot sauces, including the award-winning The Burner (lime and peach flavours and Carolina reapers' searing heat) and two sweet potato-based salad dressings. One is poppy seed, the other is tarragon.
Henry opened a boutique gourmet food shop called MH Fine Foods in Cambridge. He said 90 per cent of his stock (pickles, jams, sauces, oils, as well as Ontario-blended teas and small batch coffees) is sourced from local or Canadian producers.
"The reason why I'm doing this is because I want us as Canadians to support local stores that support the local market [and] keep the money here," said Henry.
Here are three other Black-owned food producers to check out:
- Ce Food Experience (bakery) in Waterloo.
- Laza Food and Beverages in Guelph.
- Wicked Smart Hot Sauce in Kitchener.
A taste of home
In 2013, when Bolatito Alawode and her husband Bisi were studying at Sarnia's Lambton College, they had to travel to London or Toronto to get Nigerian foods they grew up with.
During a six-hour round-trip drive to Toronto, Alawode thought there must be a better way to do this.
"If I have this problem, I bet there are other immigrants that have the same problem," explained Alawode. "And so, I checked if I could order my groceries online. There was no African grocery store online."
They later moved to Guelph and launched MyChopChop.ca in 2017, one of Canada's first online African grocers. They ship African flours, spices, produce, meats, and other ingredients to clients across North America.
Alawode has also been key in receiving approvals for foods Canadian authorities hadn't classified.
"They actually invited us to the board to help them with some of those decisions," said Alawode. "We just tried to be as vocal as we could, because we knew that we didn't have that representation."
- Absolute African Store in Guelph.
- Fourbeez African Caribbean Market in Cambridge.
- OK's Tropical in Kitchener.
Farming for the future
Cheyenne Sundance is a Toronto-born urban farmer who purchased a two-acre farm in Mount Forest, she calls Sundance Harvest.
"I have a flock of laying birds, so they produce really cute eggs. And then I have vegetables: tomatoes and melons, corn, lettuce, and greens and the vegetables that you would see normally in a grocery store."
That produce along with culinary and medicinal herbs and cut flowers will be part of CSA programs in the spring, summer and autumn. Local pick-ups are in Mount Forest and the Guelph Farmers' Market.
Part of her land is used by Sundance Commons, a nonprofit she co-founded with her friend Jon Gagnon, to encourage younger people, who traditionally face barriers getting into agriculture, to start farming. As a result, she's helping nurture a new community of young Black farmers.
"We started Sundance Commons to provide free land access and free equipment and all the stuff that would cost so much money," said Sundance.
LISTEN | These local Black-owned businesses are helping to shape the food we eat: Jasmine Mangalaseril
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