Swahili Food Seattle

Startup Q&A: Swahili Food Seattle

Founded: 2015 Contact: 253-426-5307  [caption id="attachment_1660" align="alignleft" width="253"] Benson, Owner of Swahili Food Seattle[/caption]

Q: Tell us about your business?

I cater East African food across King County communities. I cater small occasions, birthdays, graduations, small parties and individual meal orders. The African community loves my food because it meets their cultural appetite and is affordable. I’ve found there is a lot of interest in Kenyan cuisine outside the African community as well and I always enjoy meeting people who want to try African foods.  

Q: How did you get the idea for your business? What inspired you to start this business?

I saw that many Kenyans were getting very busy and did not have time to cook traditional meals.  I worked in the food industry back in Kenya and have always loved to cook, I realized I could fill that need.  I was number four in a family of twelve, I started cooking at a young age and everyone in my family loved my food. When I came to America, I saw that many Kenyans were busy and did not have time to cook traditional meals. The idea to start a catering business came very easily to me and I did not enjoy any other kind of job when I came to America. When I talked to family and people who knew me back in Kenya, they would always tell me I needed to start a Kenyan food business.    

Q: What makes you different from other types of African restaurants and caterers?

[caption id="attachment_1658" align="alignright" width="300"] Chapati, Samosas, and Goat Stew[/caption]  My recipes are based on traditional Kenyan dishes but I improvise changes that give them a local Seattle flavor as well. I learned to cook from generations of family traditions and have carried these traditions with me to America.  My cooking is made from organic produce and fresh spices from Africa’s spice capital of Zanzibar – you will not be able to have only one taste. I also cater to special needs and my clients’ timeline – responding to calls and making deliveries outside normal business hours  

Q: What do you like best about your work?

 Flexibility, the joy of seeing people appreciate my food and services, I enjoy interacting with people and sharing the experience and food from my culture. It is always fun to meet people who have visited Kenya and for those who can’t make it all the way to Africa, I am pleased to bring my culture to them.   

Q: What is your business’ biggest challenge?

 I am trying to grow my business so I can have my own commercial kitchen. I don’t want to run a restaurant but instead to provide catering services and supply local restaurants and grocery stores with fresh Kenyan food. In order to do this, I need capital to buy equipment and, eventually rent a large space to work from. I am challenged by financial resources to grow my business, hire staff, and expand my business ideas. For now, I am focusing on building my catering business and marketing to new customers.  

Q: What is something people might be surprised to learn about you or your business?

 That I never went to school to learn cooking skills, they can’t understand how I taught myself to cook such tasty food.  

Q: What types of services or programs have been helpful?

 I’m telling you, I learned something I could not have imagined with I joined FIN. I knew that I could own a business but not necessarily how to do it. For instance, I learned how to operate in a commercial kitchen and how to scale recipes for large orders. Before this I cooked by feel and taste but I needed to learn how to measure and create consistency between dishes. My next adventure will be to improve my marketing skills.   [caption id="attachment_1663" align="alignleft" width="288"] Benson cooking from the FIN booth at the Federal Way Farmers Market[/caption]   Q: What would you say to other small food business owners thinking of working with FIN? That FIN is the ultimate program for people like me with a passion for food business. I would encourage other immigrants to join FIN and be intentional about taking the advantage of available resources, FIN has resources that can meet their every food business need, their financial support is very practical, I can’t believe they paid my public health permit, there is nowhere else you can find this kind of support, FIN has treated me like a parent treats and cares about a child, it is a unique program if you are committed to the process. I would encourage them to be very persistent to the process.

Connect with Benson to make an order or volunteer.

P.S. Benson would love help with creating marketing materials. 

South King County BDT’s-Outreach

SeaTac Course in English  English: Calling all entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs in South King County! Do you have a business idea you’d like to pursue, or an existing business you’d like to grow? Register for the Ventures Orientation in SeaTac on Monday, September 11! Ventures and the Food Innovation Network are partnering to offer the first-ever business training in SeaTac. You’ll get an opportunity to learn about our program for small business owners with limited resources and apply for our 8-week Business Development Training course. The orientation is free and will be at Lutheran Community Services NW in SeaTac: 4040 S 188th St., SeaTac, 98188. Registration is required to attend, so click here to register now or call 206-352-1945 to register via phone or for more information.

The 2nd Annual FIN Resource Fair is Here!

We are excited to host the 2nd Annual FIN Resource Fair May 12th from 5:30-8pm at Foster High School. This year we will be bringing together resources for both entrepreneurs and community members. Folks can get help starting a food business, finding a job in the food industry, or taking food and nutrition classes. More than 20 resource providers will be participating. We will have fun children’s activities and feature food from the FIN entrepreneurs.  Join us in celebrating the diversity of South King County through food! If you are interested in coming or want to invite others, visit us on Facebook.

Soozveen Catering

Startup Q&A: Soozveen Catering

Soozveen is a Mediterranean catering company run by two Kurdish-American sisters. We cook for events – but really anything more than 5 people. Q: What inspired you to start this business?We always wanted to start a small bakery – ever since we finished high school. We watched our grandmother, mother, and aunts cook all the time. From memorized family recipes, they cooked complicated dishes without measuring a thing, and even when they were exhausted. It was when our mother got sick that we started helping out more in the kitchen. We would cook so much food and then take it to Highline College, where we were working at the time - and still work.The staff and teachers would tell us we made so much food that we should just open a restaurant. Dean Alice Madsen was the first to seriously encourage us to think seriously about opening a business and connected us with classes and support.. We thought it was just going to be a side job and that it would not become anything real but before we knew it there were orders coming in and we were going through the process to formalize our business. Q: What makes you different from other types of catering business? We cook with love. Soozveen actually means ‘the promise of love’. We have a true passion for this work and care about everything from flavors to presentation. There are a lot of Mediterranean/Iraqi restaurants but we are one of only two Kurdish in King County. We are unique in our use of spices that we get from Northern Iraq – it’s really the taste of the land. Our specialty is our stuffed grape leaves (dolma) and baklava. Q: What is your business’ biggest challenge?

Finding clients. Right now, our biggest clients are through our personal and professional networks. Word of mouth is really successful for us but it takes a lot of time. We would really like to build a base of businesses and event spaces to serve.Q: What do you like best about your work? Meeting different people. Hearing people’s experience with our food and making them happy and smile. When people see good food it's easy to forget your worries. We don’t like to change the recipes, we want to keep it like we cook it at home for our families. But we make a lot of dishes and it’s just a matter of finding the right dishes for a client’s palette. We do, however, make a big effort to meet people’s dietary and health needs. Some things we may bake rather than use the traditional methods of frying in oil because a lot of people have become so health conscious and we want to meet those needs. Q: What is something people might be surprised to learn about you or your business? There is a story behind every dish – you will have to ask us when you make an order. The other thing is that people have a lot of misperceptions about middle eastern people – one thing you may not know is how open and welcoming our culture is – to eat together brings people together. To go to a middle eastern person’s house is to eat a lot of food – food is how we share our stories and our love for each other. Even a very poor person will find a way to share food with a guest. Q: What types of services or programs have been helpful? StartZone at Highline College has a lot of workshops around marketing, labelling, accounting. Project Feast helped us in nutrition and food safety. FIN has helped us to get our business license and permits and to connect us with more people – to help us build our network. Ventures provided training to help us understand how to plan and run a business. Q: What would you say to other small food business owners thinking of working with FIN? There are so many opportunities out there, you just have to believe in yourself. But at the same time, be prepared. There are a lot of logistics you need to learn – things will not happen right away and you need to take the time to be prepared and don’t react out of a sense of urgency. Believe in yourself and you must believe in any organization you are working with, the trust must be there when you are getting help from someone. 

It’s official…FIN Entrepreneurs have launched!

FIN is excited to support the launch of four new local caterers cooking out of our shared commercial kitchen in Kent. The catering businesses each received a small start-up grant and reduced rent fees and are now fully licensed and insured caterers. FIN partner, Project Feast, is a core tenant, training culinary apprentices who operate the lunch cafe, Cafe Ubuntu. FIN is working closely with partners Ventures, StartZone and Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship to ensure each entrepreneur is matched with a business coach, receives ongoing training and identifies market opportunities such as catering events, farmers markets, and festivals. The seven entrepreneurs are operating under 4 catering businesses and will be cooking up cuisines from around the world. Swahili Seattle Food, Soozveen, Rekebot Coffee House and Mian Dian cater dishes and flavors from Kenya, Iraq, Ethiopia and China. Many thanks for the support from Seattle Foundation, Communities of Opportunity, Port of Seattle, and City of Kent. Their generous support has helped FIN and partners to build out the commercial kitchen and ensure the entrepreneurs and apprentices have the support services needed. And a special thank you to Project Feast for spending the many hours managing the remodeling project!   If you have a catering or special event coming up, please give a FIN entrepreneur a call!

Jaqueline Garcia: Community Food Advocate

From Motherhood to Social Justice Activista

Elaine Brand, In Your Face Pie Company

In Your Face Pie Company owner Elaine grew up in the Bronx, New York with her artist minded family. Her father made wooden toys that functionally disabled adults would sand, paint, and sell. Elaine watched her father, knowing one day she too would give back to her community. Years later, after her husband's job offer in Seattle fell through, she felt dangerously close to not being able to provide for her daughter. Before moving to Seattle Elaine had earned undergraduate degrees in Acting & Directing, Technical Theatre, and a Master’s degree in Performing Arts Management. Upon leaving NYC, it became difficult to find work as many employers felt she was overqualified for the positions available.  “No one wanted to hire me. I had a child at the time and I just needed a job.” Although her husband eventually found a new job and supported them, she wanted to make something of herself. Elaine's father was the first to suggest that she begin a career in baking. Elaine fell in love with the idea and immediately enrolled in baking courses, eventually earning a certificate in Pastry and Specialty baking and learning the operations skills necessary to run food catering business. She quickly opened a chocolate company and eventually a small catering company. Eventually she closed the doors on both businesses and focused on raising her two daughters until they graduated high school. Though her passion for owning food businesses never faltered. Inspired by her father's philanthropic heart and her daughter's career in the Marines, Elaine began dreaming of a pie company. She set out to start a pie cafe where anyone who walked in the door would feel at home. In addition to her pies she would also provide employment and assistance to retired veterans. To start this new journey, Elaine enrolled in courses at Start Zone which led her to make connections with the Food Innovation Network and later Ventures. Through being tenacious and hardworking she graduated from Ventures’ Business Development Training program, received both her LLC and business license, and is working on developing the catering side of her business. Her company features over 40 varieties of sweet and 18 varieties of savory pies. What advice does Elaine have for other budding entrepreneurs? “Learn everything you can about your business and be a champion for your business. You have to want it, you have to want so bad that you can taste it. And I can really taste it.”