To mark Black History Month, Bethesda Beat is highlighting three local Black-owned food businesses. They described the challenges of trying to get through the COVID-19 pandemic and offered guidance for minority business owners looking to get started in Montgomery County.
Kwamena and Penelope Cudjoe
AMAC Foods
Kwamena and Penelope Cudjoe started AMAC Foods, a small distributor of Jollof rice, about six years ago out of their Montgomery Village home.
The couple, who emigrated from Ghana, wanted to make the rice dish that is native to West Africa, containing tomatoes, spices and other vegetables. But making it from scratch typically takes around two hours, Kwamena said.
“We thought that it takes a long time to cook from scratch. So, what I did was I sat down and I came up with a formula to mix all the ingredients together,” he said.
Penelope said the rice is made at a factory in Pennsylvania, then distributed to select stores in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Those stores include multiple Whole Foods locations, Common Markets in Frederick, Dawson’s Market in Rockville and Grosvenor Market in North Bethesda.
They also sell their product online and at farmers markets during the spring and summer, she said.
Customers who order the rice can make it in about 35 minutes, they said.
Kwamena said that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were doing cooking demonstrations at community events, but that has diminished in the last two years. However, Penelope said online sales have increased during the pandemic.
“It’s a dry product and it has a 24-month shelf life. So, people were buying it to cook at home. A lot of people were cooking at home during the pandemic,” she said.
In six years, the popularity of Jollof rice has taken off as more Americans visit West Africa, Penelope said.
“When we started this product, people didn’t know much about Jollof rice. But now people come back and tell us, ‘Oh, I was in Ghana. I was in Nigeria. I was in Mali. I had Jollof rice,’” she said.
“They get very excited when they see our product on the market, because it takes them back to when they were in Africa.”
Penelope said she knows a lot of small minority-owned businesses that find it tough to fund their business.
“Unfortunately, if you don’t have a grandmother or a family member give you $100,000 to invest in your business, you’re on your own. And we came here from Africa, so it’s even worse,” she said.
Penelope said positive feedback from customers keeps them going.
“When they eat the food and come back and give us reviews, you feel like, Oh, wow, you’re doing something good,” she said.
Cheryl Sloan
Cheryl’s Kitchen
For 18 years, Cheryl Sloan has been selling maple-frosted walnuts, pecans and cashews, as well as trail mix, as part of her business Cheryl’s Kitchen.
Sloan said she would always sell baked goods with candied nuts in them to friends and relatives, and they would encourage her to go into the nut business.
“And so, I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’ for a few years, and finally decided to give it a try in 2004. And I’ve been in business ever since,” she said.
Sloan operates her business out of her Takoma Park home.
Until a few years ago, she had to drive more than 30 miles to Gaithersburg to make her products, but for the last few years, she has used the Takoma Park Silver Spring Community Kitchen inside the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church on Tulip Avenue as her space.
The community kitchen was started in 2017 by the nonprofit Crossroads Community Food Network as an affordable food preparation space for entrepreneurs who have gone through the organization’s microenterprise training program.
Sloan said users pay a fee to use the kitchen space and must have certification from the county’s health department for handling food products.
Sloan said her customers include those who order packages of nuts by mail and those who pick them up. Much of her business has come from selling at events such as the Takoma Park Folk Festival and the Takoma Park Street Festival. The lack of in-person events the last two years due to the pandemic has been very challenging, she said.
“What’s kept me afloat has been … my product was in the Takoma Park-Silver Spring Co-op. My product has been distributed at one of the local theaters. And so, when you’ve got to really change gears like that, it makes all the difference in the world,” she said.
Sloan now has a corporate sponsor to help her place a large number of orders, which has helped during the pandemic.
Sloan said that anyone who wants to get into business should make sure their dream is realistic and talk with another professional.
“Try to find somebody who’s been in a business similar to yours, who’s been successful, so that you can kind of have a buddy system. Because when you’ve got to learn all of this by yourself, it can be overwhelming,” she said.
Tanya Doka-Spandhla
Passion to Seed Gardening
Tanya Doka-Spandhla started Passion to Seed Gardening on a farm in Gaithersburg that the landowner leases to her.
Doka-Spandhla participated in the county’s New Farmer Program — a program through the Office of Agriculture that gives business training to startup farmers, and teaches them sustainable farm practices.
She met her landowner through the Land Link Montgomery program, which matches new farmers and landowners.
Doka-Spandhla sells produce that includes Zimbabwean corn, okra, pumpkin leaves and mustard greens, among other items. Prior to the pandemic, she sold her produce at a nearby farmers market.
“For a long period of time, I was not able to go there because of the pandemic. And in a sense, I lost contact with customers that would regularly come to my farmers market stand,” she said.
Doka-Spandhla eventually directed her customers to make appointments to pick their produce up from the farm instead. The landowner didn’t mind the change, she said.
For minority businesses in Montgomery County, Doka-Spandhla said, the cost of owning land can be prohibitive.
“There’s that challenge living in Montgomery County, because land is not within reach (financially) for some people,” she said. She drives 30 minutes from her home to get to the farm.
The Land Link program, run by the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, has given a number of minority farmers the opportunity to start their ventures, senior conservation associate Kristina Bostick told Bethesda Beat last year.
“Often, they have deep experience from years in their home country. And what’s so wonderful is they are bringing crops that might be unfamiliar to us that are culturally appropriate for their communities,” Bostick said at the time.
Doka-Spandhla said her goal is to live and farm in the same place.
“Given that opportunity when your land is there and your dwelling’s there, you can get a lot done,” she said.
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The Montgomery County Food Council, a nonprofit, has a list of some Black- and minority-owned food businesses on its website.
Click here for Black History Month events and resources
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@moco360.media
