What involves thoughts whenever you consider a scrumptious, home-cooked meal?
I take into consideration my checklist of favorites — Jamaican classics like oxtail, curry goat, and rice and peas. As a Los Angeles native, I all the time crave taco from a stand or a hen burrito with refried beans and Spanish rice. Or, my new obsession, feijoada, a Brazilian black bean stew.
These meals remind me of my residence and childhood, however I have to be sincere. At eating places, they’re fairly costly dishes.
Whereas I may try to make these meals at residence, most take hours, and recipes on-line don’t fairly seize that genuine, selfmade style. And I can’t overlook to say that grocery shops usually don’t have what’s essential to make these meals shortly and simply.
However what if making these dishes may very well be easy and quick? That’s the query A Dozen Cousins, a wholesome meals model that makes handy facet dishes, is right here to reply with their ready-to-eat, wholesome, and genuine Black- and Latino-inspired meals.
Founder Ibraheem Basir, a Brooklyn native, grew up surrounded by Black, Latino, Creole, and Caribbean meals.
After attending the Wharton College of the College of Pennsylvania for his MBA and dealing at a big nationwide meals firm, Basir launched A Dozen Cousins in 2019. He introduced his upbringing within the metropolis recognized for being a melting pot of cultures to his work.
He seen, “You had to decide on between these actually genuine cultural manufacturers, however perhaps the elements weren’t nice, or the sodium was actually excessive,” Basir tells Phrase In Black. “On the flip facet, you had pure manufacturers that had actually good sourcing and elements however didn’t all the time have the meals and flavors that I had grown up consuming.”
The corporate’s first merchandise had been totally seasoned, ready-to-eat beans made with actual greens, spices, and avocado oil. Within the following yr got here high-protein rice cooked in bone broth. And in 2022, the model launched seasoning sauces for Jamaican jerk, Mexican pollo asado, Peruvian pollo a la brasa, and extra.
“I wished it to really feel actually genuine, actually emotional, actually cultural, however then on the similar time, leverage every thing I discovered round elements, sourcing, and so on.,” Basir says. “For a client that’s busy, brief on time, desires to place wholesome meals on their desk, we’re an answer.”
Rooted within the Group and the Tradition
Across the time Basir was planning and launching his firm, his household already had 11 nieces and nephews. His daughter’s delivery made 12, inspiring the model’s title: A Dozen Cousins.
The meals they provide remind folks of their households and communities, too. When he thinks concerning the fellowship rising round his firm and merchandise, Basir says he sees it as celebrating a group that was all the time there.
“I do assume folks actually resonate with our merchandise, with our storytelling, and a few of the advertising and marketing we do as a result of we’re celebrating issues they already know and love,” he says. “We’re not attempting to take credit score for creating Cuban black beans. We’re simply presenting it in a method that’s extra handy.”
Together with the group outdoors the corporate, all A Dozen Cousins’ staff are folks of coloration, serving to create merchandise with a way of authenticity and familiarity their rivals usually can’t replicate.
In October 2022, A Dozen Cousins partnered with Marvel Studios and Disney to convey “Flavors of Wakanda,” coinciding with the discharge of Black Panther: Wakanda Endlessly.
Rising the Model’s Attain
A Dozen Cousins desires to serve everybody however has a target market — busy individuals who love good and wholesome meals. And that’s a part of the promoting level for retailers, as nicely.
The model is in main retailers and grocery shops like Goal, Walmart, Entire Meals Market, Kroger, Publix, and REI. Basir says their story round comfort and taste is important for rising the enterprise and promoting merchandise.
“If any person walks into their retailer, they’re going to search out one thing they love,” he says. “So what we inform them is, ‘Look, our merchandise are very differentiated when it comes to the flavour profiles. They’re flavors you don’t have in your shelf immediately, and when it comes to comfort, every thing we do is prepared in 20 minutes or much less, in some circumstances, prepared in 60 seconds or much less.’”
Basir says they’re “making their method across the dinner plate” with beans, rice, and seasonings for meats and greens.
“Our objective as a enterprise is when folks take into consideration making ready a meal from the Caribbean, Latin America, or the South, we need to be the primary model that pops into their thoughts,” Basir says. “We need to be there as a form of right-hand companion within the kitchen.”
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