Food Archives - Page 2 of 7

Published on July 12, 2020December 19, 2023

1 min read

Black Owned Packaged Food Brands

Do you need a pantry refresh that nourishes your taste buds and supports Black entrepreneurs? Look no further than these Black owned packaged food brands.

From traditional comfort foods with a twist to globally-inspired delights, these brands offer a delicious adventure for your palate and a conscious choice for your conscience.

So, ditch the ordinary and dive into a world where every meal becomes a celebration of culinary diversity and community.

Black Owned Packaged Food

Neilly’s Foods

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Yolélé Foods

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Published on June 30, 2020June 30, 2020

3 mins read

Black Owned Vegan Spot in Atlanta Offering Free Food For a Day

Black-owned vegan fast-food spot, Slutty Vegan, is well-loved by locals and celebrities alike. This week, Lala Anthony, Ludacris, Chris Paul, and Gabrielle Union-Wade have teamed up to buy out the restaurant’s offerings for a day, when “free food will be [given away] in support of Pinky Cole’s business, and her community impact.”

Today, Tuesday, June 30th, the Atlanta location will be free all day thanks to the generosity of these celebs, who rallied around the founder Pinky Cole after her establishment was targeted and false online reviews claiming negative experiences were posted in response to her charitable deed a couple of days ago.

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Last week, Cole decided to set up college funds alongside Clark Atlanta University for the children Rayshard Brooks, a Black Atlanta resident who was fatally shot by police at a Wendy’s on June 12th. Brooks is survived by four kids, who range in age from 1-years old to 13-years old. These college funds will cover the full cost of tuition and room and board for each of his children and are valued at $600,000 each.

Cole’s generous deed received praise online, but also quickly became a target of a negative online harassment campaign, as “Slutty Vegan’s Yelp and Google Business pages became inundated with false and negative reviews along with one-star ratings, claiming they had poor experiences at the establishment.”

black owned vegan

In response to this, loyal customers quickly came to Cole’s rescue, flooding the Yelp and Google Business pages with accurate, positive reviews, receiving over 18,000 positive Google reviews within a 72-hour time span.

To add to this push for positivity, a press release announced celebrities were also rallying around Cole: “This free food giveaway is LaLa Anthony, Ludacris, Gabrielle Union-Wade, and Chris Paul’s way of standing behind the popular brand that has done so much for the community since it’s inception in 2018.

“Slutty Vegan is located at 1542 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd SW. Free food items will be provided on Tuesday from 12noon – 7:30 pm. Social distancing will be encouraged and enforced.”

Source: The Beet

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Published on June 28, 2020December 2, 2020

2 mins read

12 Year-Old Vegan Chef Omari McQueen to Release First Cookbook

Vegan chef Omari McQueen—who is only 12 years old—will publish his first cookbook in January 2021. Omari McQueen’s Best Bites Cookbook will feature 30 easy-to-make plant-based recipes crafted by the young chef. “I don’t want animals to die or be eaten so I teach people my age to be vegan,”

McQueen, who went vegan at the age of 7, said in a recent mini-documentary. McQueen created his own vegan brand Dipalicious at eight years old after starting a YouTube channel where he filmed himself making a vegan pizza served with his own Caribbean Kick dip. Last year, McQueen hosted a Dipalcious pop-up restaurant in Croydon, United Kingdom, where he served a variety of vegan Caribbean-inspired fare.

The book will be published by media brand Scholastic UK, which acquired world publishing rights from literary agent Oscar Janson-Smith at Kruger Crowne. “Omari McQueen is inspirational. At just 12 years old, he has achieved so much.

His passion for food and cooking is irresistible,” Scholastic UK Publishing Manager Leah James said. “Children everywhere have been busy learning to cook during lockdown; we can’t wait for Omari to share his recipes, tips, and enthusiasm with a generation of children and their families. Omari is leading a new generation of ethical minded foodies into a more sustainable future.”

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McQueen took to Instagram to thank all of his supporters for making his new cookbook possible. “I would like to thank everyone for all your love, support, and encouragement. I would also like to say thank you to the one and only @oscarjansonsmith you have had my back for years, you believed in me from the beginning and @krugercowne, @scholastic_uk for giving me a chance to share my passion to the world,” McQueen said. “Mummy and daddy, you’re the best a boy like me could have. Thank you to my siblings and family for being you—perfect 100 percent.”

Source: VegNews

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Published on February 17, 2020

2 mins read

Bowie State University Opens Food Pantry Lounge That Feeds Students For Free

Bowie State University, working with Food Lion, announced Monday it is opening a new on-campus nutrition lounge supplying free and healthy foods.

Through Food Lion Feeds, the retailer donated $10,000 to get the space up and running.

“This gift from Food Lion Feeds, along with the ongoing partnership of Food Lion and Capital Area Food Bank, will make an incredible difference for our Bowie State students, who sometimes struggle to afford healthy food options,” said Brent Swinton, vice president of institutional advancement. “The Bowie State Nutrition Lounge is emblematic of the university’s mission. This campus community provides wraparound support to empower our students to reach their full potential. The nourishment and healthy foods provided in the Nutrition Lounge will empower our students to advance their academic success and personal well-being.”

The Bowie State Nutrition Lounge will give students a specific space, especially for commuters, to relax, study and access healthy foods.

This morning the new food pantry/nutrition lounge is opening at @BowieState thanks to a donation from @FoodLion. It’s completely FREE to students and the university hopes this is a space everyone will utilize 🍽 @ABC7GMW @ABC7News #GMW https://t.co/Zlkod97sL3 pic.twitter.com/GFQr8BmoGD

— Kristen Powers (@KristenWTAE) February 17, 2020

The university partnered with a local Food Lion store and Capital Area Food Bank to keep the lounge stocked regularly.

Many of Bowie State’s students only eat one meal per day, according to a university press release, so they believe a lounge will allow the students to get a healthy snack during a school day.

This is the sixth space Food Lion Feeds has established at a Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association school since 2015.

“As the official Grocery Partner of the CIAA and deeply committed to Bowie and the greater Baltimore community, we’re excited to join with Bowie State and help nourish students right on campus,” said Jason Bullock, Food Lion director of operations in the Bowie, Md., area. “Students should be focused on learning, not where their next meal will come from. Caring for our neighbors in the towns and cities we serve is important to us, so we’re excited about this new space to help nourish the Bowie State community.”

Source: ABC

Published on August 24, 2019December 11, 2021

2 mins read

Black Owned Businesses That Most Likely Serve Better Fried Chicken Than Popeyes

I must admit, when I started to see posts here and there about Popeyes, I thought it was odd but random. Then I noticed that this past week, there’s been growing pandemonium about fried chicken sandwiches and people are both overjoyed and MAD about it.

Folks have been comparing the mass hysteria to minstrelsy. Personally, while I actually think it’s comical and don’t feel a need to be up in arms, I still acknowledge the importance of SHOPPING BLACK whenever possible.

So here’s a list of Black owned restaurants and chefs who are serving up their own juicy fried chicken sandwiches. And S/O to BlackFoodie.Co for gathering most of this info!

If you’re a Black Foodie, check out their site. And if you REALLY want to take action, find out how you can help us build the dopest directory of Black owned businesses, GLOBALLY 😉

– Shantrelle P. Lewis bka @apshantology

Roots Chicken Shak (Plano, TX)

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Bellis Bistro (Milwaukee, WI)

Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken (Multiple locations)

Country Cookin (Philadelphia, PA)

Taste This (Baltimore, MD)

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Ms Carters Kitchen (Baltimore, MD)

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Soule (Chicago, IL)

Kuzzo’s Chicken and Waffles (Detroit, MI)

Papi Cuisine (Baltimore, MD)

Sunnyside Cafe (Baltimore, MD)

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Yo’ Mama’s (Birmingham, AL)

Jacob Restaurant (Harlem, NY)

Soul Bowl (Minneapolis, MN)

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We Shukin (Miami, FL)

Comfort LA (Los Angeles, CA)

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Nana’s Chicken & Waffles (Conyers, GA)

Smitty & Mo’s (Newark, NJ)

South (Philadelphia, PA)

The Crabby Shack (Brooklyn, NY)

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-Tony O. Lawson (@thebusyafrican)

Published on July 3, 2019July 3, 2019

2 mins read

Black Owned Restaurant Partners with Walmart to create over 30 Jobs

Cornbread is a unique Black owned restaurant that is creating jobs and a space where traditional soul food dishes are prepared using ingredients that are free of steroids and hormones.

Recently, the restaurant announced that they are working with Walmart to expand into three Walmart stores in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. All three restaurant locations will open this year with the inaugural location set to open on July 5^th.

Black Owned Restaurant

Cornbread’s mission is to passionately invest in its employees and in the communities where it does business. The inaugural location, in a leased space at Walmart, is expected to create approximately 35 new job opportunities.

Black Owned Restaurant

“This expansion is the culmination of two years of hard work by my co-founder, Zadie, and our amazing team. Cornbread was born out of a vision and belief that we could create a space where friends and family can enjoy soul food that is also healthy and where we invest in our employees. We also wanted to ensure that our food was accessible, which is why this collaboration with Walmart is so important,” explained Adenah Bayoh, co-founder of Cornbread.

“When I began my journey as a restaurateur, I was turned down by seven banks before I was able to secure the financing I needed to purchase my first restaurant. Now, 13 years later, my own signature soul food restaurant is expanding outside of New Jersey with the support of the largest retailer in the country.”

Adenah Bayoh and Elzadie “Zadie” Smith are the co-founders of the restaurant

Cornbread’s menu and flavor profiles were crafted by Zadie B. Smith, a native of Georgia with life-long culinary experience. Adenah Bayoh is a restaurateur who opened her first restaurant at age 29.

To learn more about Cornbread, please visit www.cornbreadsoul.com.

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican) and Guest contributor Vernon Williams

Published on June 19, 2019

4 mins read

Sisters’ Furlough Cheesecakes Will Soon Be Sold In Walmart

It was back in January when sisters Nikki Howard and Jaqui Wright found themselves furloughed and without income during the partial government shutdown.

Howard worked in human resources at the Food and Drug Administration, while Wright worked as an analyst for the Department of Justice.

“We had bills due and no paychecks coming in, including college tuition,” Wright said. “So we had to think fast.”

They quickly whipped up a plan to bring in extra income by selling homemade cheesecake.

“We took half a day to plan, and the rest is history,” Howard said.

Five months later, a lot has changed for the sisters behind ‘The Furlough Cheesecake’. Their story began to go viral shortly after ABC 7 first interviewed the pair in January. Then came an appearance on The Ellen Show, followed by online orders from all over the country.

“Almost instantly, we had thousands of orders,” said Wright. “I was trying to think how we were going to make a hundred, and then we got requests for thousands.”

The company grew so quickly, Howard and Wright were soon able to quit their jobs at the federal government. Not long after that, they started renting industrial kitchen space so they’d have more room to work and fill orders.

And now – their cheesecakes will soon be for sale at Walmart.

“We’re so very excited we’re able to share a little slice of smile,” said Howard. “Walmart! The Walmart! Our cheesecakes will be there in August!”

Starting August 18, their cheesecakes will hit the shelves of about a hundred Walmart stores throughout the DMV.

“These are small personal size, three inch size, not our full-size cheesecakes,” Wright said. “So those who’ve been asking for individual serving sizes, you can go to Walmart and get that.”

Their cheesecakes are also now featured on the menu at the Bethesda Blues and Jazz Club.

“I mean, if we had to write the story, I don’t think I have this much imagination,” Howard said. “We just went for it. And the blessing is, we had each other.”

Looking back, the sisters say there are a lot of parallels between perfecting a recipe and building a business. They say they’ve certainly learned some lessons along the way.

“When you’re building a recipe, you have to try some things and maybe it doesn’t work quite the way you wanted it, so then you tweak it and perfect it until it’s just right,” Howard said. “And with your business, there are times things don’t go exactly the way you want them to go. But, make a few tweaks and keep going. You learn!”

On Tuesday, they thanked friends, family members, and even strangers throughout the DMV, who supported their business along the way.

As for the name of their company, Howard and Wright say, “The Furlough Cheesecake” is here to stay.

“Because it means something,” Wright said. “You know, we were furloughed, but now we’re in control of our destiny. So we couldn’t let go of the name.”

Source: WJLA

Published on June 9, 2019

3 mins read

Black Grocery Coop Celebrates 10 Years and an Expansion

Mandela Grocery is a Black Grocery coop that’s on a mission to nourish their neighborhood of West Oakland with healthy food, wellness resources, and collective ownership. Their full-service grocery store sources from entrepreneurs and farmers in California with a focus on black and brown farmers and food makers.

Prior to 2009, residents of West Oakland had to drive or take public transit to get groceries, or else resort to dollar stores and liquor stores for their grocery needs. Some might call it a food desert.

Mandela Grocery calls it a site of “food apartheid” — that is, a place where systemic racism has shaped the neighborhood’s lack of access to fresh food.

Black Grocery Coop

Now, the worker-owned grocery store is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The anniversary comes at a time when the co-op is undergoing a lot of exciting change.

The market was recently renovated and got a brand-new logo. And since long-term subletter Zella’s Soulful Kitchen moved, Mandela Grocery has taken over the space’s commercial kitchen, called The Co-op Kitchen.

Black Grocery Coop

It offers a selection of grab-and-go sandwiches like turkey cheddar and chickpea salad, plus coffee. Plans are in the works to offer green smoothies, espresso drinks, hot foods like rotisserie chicken, and plenty of plant-based options.

“It feels like a new beginning with all the transition that we’re in,” said Adrionna Fike, one of the co-op’s 10 worker-owners.

The 10-year celebration took place on June 5th. and featured around 15 food vendors and live music.

Booths included healing massage, acupuncture, yoga, herbal medicine, cooking demonstrations, blender-bike smoothies, a women’s refuge trailer, free books, free barbers, and more.

Meanwhile, Mandela Grocery is also helping to spread the model of the worker-owned cooperative grocery store. In order to support new cooperatives, Mandela Grocery will offer training programs in its store for the members of a new grocery cooperative currently known as The East Oakland Grocery Co-op.

Black Grocery Coop

The new cooperative is spearheaded by Aya Jeffers-Fabro of Acta Non Verba, an urban youth farming program in Deep East Oakland. The store will carry produce from Acta Non Verba’s urban farms right in East Oakland. While Fike said the cooperative is still searching for a location, the store is expected to open in fall 2020.

Source: EastBayExpress

Feature Image Credit: SF Chronicle

Published on May 29, 2019May 29, 2019

6 mins read

Yo Stay Hungry is Serving Culinary Competition’s for The Culture

Yo Stay Hungry is a live culinary competition bridging hip hop with food and beverage. It began in 2015 as a citywide culinary competition for high school students in Queens, NY.

We caught up with founder, Syreeta Gates to find out more about how she and her team are using food and hip hop to educate and inspire.

Yo Stay Hungry founder, Syreeta Gates – (photo cred: Sho Shots)

What inspired you to create Yo Stay Hungry?

For some context I actually wanted to be a chef in high school (that’s what it says in my yearbook). In HS I was baking and selling cakes, lasagna and all of that. So, some years later I googled hip hop and food and the only thing that appeared was a few articles that had lyrics mentioning food and beverage.

I was like wait a minute, something is missing. I was rocking in August Martin HS at the time and they had a Culinary Academy, so the bells went off. What’s hip hop without beef? BOOM! Let’s do a culinary competition.

How would you describe your relationship with hip hop?

My boy Yahdon Israel said hip hop is my first language. I really dig that! My relationship with hip hop is rooted in my relationship specifically with my uncles and big cousins. More specifically, how it happened was really the brainchild of stylist extraordinaire’s Misa Hylton and Groovey Lou.

In the late 90’s, one of my uncles had a cream SC 400 Lexus with gold bbs’s. He and my cousin walked into my grandma’s house as I was sitting on the step and I was absolutely blown away. Mind you, I was only about 10 years old.

My uncle had on a Versace silk shirt with the matching shades and my cousin had on a DKNY body suit. I had no clue was hip hop was, one thing I was clear of was that whatever it was I wanted to be apart of it.

How do you select what chefs are involved with the project?

We rock though referral, a lot of chefs have been reaching out to us to participate, so that’s been great. We have a system around how we choose chefs to rock, but we are thankful they see what we are doing and want to be apart of it.

What does the phrase “Everybody eats” mean to you?

It means there’s enough room for everybody at the table. “Everybody Eats” is one of our beliefs at Yo Stay Hungry. The phrase represents the idea that through teamwork everyone is taken care of. #teamUS Everybody Eats is also from the classic 2002 drama “Paid In Full”, you know we have to keep it consistent.

What is your vision for YSH?

Take over the world LOL! Nah, more specifically, Yo Stay Hungry will take over people’s kitchens. We will put on for the culture and preserve the culture in a way that’s never been done before. We have the adult competitions launching Fall 2019 which I am really excited about.

Why a food and hip hop business?

We live in a world where hip hop is pop culture. I don’t believe that Yo Stay Hungry could have existed before my generation. Folks like Jay Z, Queen Latifah, Sylvia Robinson, and Puff and the like really set the stage around what’s possible business wise in the culture.

They created TV/film opportunities, record labels, make up endorsements, liquor companies, streaming services, and the like. Throughout the entire genre of music one thing that has been consistent is food and beverage.

With Yo Stay Hungry we have an opportunity to build a business for the culture, literally. We aren’t looking at it from the outside looking in. The team is thinking what would we be interested in, what would we want to do, and from that we create a business model that’s scalable.

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican)

Feature Image: The Yo Stay Hungry Team (photo cred: Sho Shots)