Snack model founders Renée Dunn (left) and Sydney Chasin (proper)
Renée Dunn and Sydney Chasin lead very totally different lives, however they’ve two necessary issues in widespread: They every based a women-owned small enterprise to promote snacks, and had their entrepreneurship “aha second” distant from residence.
Sydney’s Story: Chasin’ Goals Farm
Sydney was raised in Maryland, however her snack enterprise lightbulb went off in Edinburgh, Scotland, the place she was learning monetary companies and entrepreneurship at Edinburgh Napier College. She at all times knew that she wished to begin her personal firm — and extra particularly, she wished to create a model centered on an historical grain referred to as sorghum.
“I grew up gluten-free in a farm city, so I’ve been utilizing sorghum my complete life,” she instructed The FruitGuys. “It’s an unbelievable crop: regeneratively farmed, tremendous drought resilient, with a root system that mines the groundwater in order that farmers don’t need to irrigate their fields, even in drought seasons.”
Sydney turned “obsessed” with sorghum and its potentialities for gluten-free of us, local weather change adaptation, and preventing meals insecurity. In Scotland, she began engaged on the enterprise idea that turned Chasin’ Goals Farm, her model of gluten-free, non-GMO historical grain puffs.
Sorghum (heart) surrounded by Chasin’ Goals Historic Grain Puffs
Sorghum has a candy, nutty style. By means of Sydney’s imaginative and prescient, it turned the right backdrop for stylish flavors like Bitter Cream & Onion and Sriracha made with easy, complete elements. That mixture of creativity and ease impressed Sydney to call Chasin’ Goals Farm after her childhood residence.
“[When I was growing up on Chasin’ Dreams Farm]my mother bred Shetland ponies and was an artist, and my dad was a software program engineer who was additionally a racecar driver. It was only a actually quirky place to develop up,” she stated. “The core of the model is ‘creativity from simplicity’ which is what we discovered to do rising up on a farm. I credit score numerous that to my dad and mom.”
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Renée’s Story: Amäzi (pronounced uh-mah-zee)
Whereas Sydney was snacking on sorghum baked items as a baby, Renée was touring from her residence in Washington D.C. to Africa along with her father, who labored for the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF). They visited Uganda when Renée was in eighth grade and that journey sparked her curiosity within the nation’s economic system and tradition.
Throughout her school years, Renée studied in Kampala, Uganda, and discovered about native monetary literacy and younger Ugandans’ relationships to cash and enterprise. That’s when her “aha second” occurred.
“I did a course on the enterprise college there and noticed how totally different discussions round entrepreneurship had been versus what we’ve right here [in the U.S.],” Renée instructed The FruitGuys. “That led me to return to Uganda and do my thesis analysis on native entrepreneurship, which is what sparked the preliminary identification of the issue Amäzi is attempting to unravel.”
Renée (backside row, fourth from the left) in Uganda
Amäzi (which suggests “water” in Luganda) is the mission-based snack model Renée created to unravel native meals and labor provide chain points. Amäzi sells vegan tropical dried fruit snacks created from Uganda-grown elements like jackfruit and plantains that always go to waste due to restricted export alternatives.
Renée first seen this downside throughout her school years in Kampala. Round that very same time, she noticed her first jackfruit when she and a buddy visited an area Bahá’í temple. She’d by no means seen something just like the foot-long spiny fruits and was so fascinated that she took a photograph with them. Later, she purchased one at a roadside stand.
“The primary time I attempted it I used to be somewhat weirded out — it was simply so candy! However each time I noticed it on the roadside after that I made the driving force cease. … We don’t have something prefer it right here [in the U.S.]. It has a lot texture and depth of taste. I inform folks that it’s like if pineapple, mango, and banana had a child,” she stated.
Amäzi employees on the manufacturing facility in Uganda
Amäzi sources the vast majority of its fruit from girls farmers and pays 67% above market value on common. From there, employees course of and package deal the fruit regionally in Amäzi’s manufacturing facility, which pays its Ugandan employees a minimum of twice the standard native wage.
“If you carry manufacturing again to the supply and create alternatives for native folks, it’s truly far more environment friendly and sustainable,” Renée stated.
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Assist a Ladies-Owned Enterprise
The FruitGuys is that includes snacks from each Chasin’ Goals Farm and Amäzi for Ladies’s Historical past Month in March 2024. Our Snacks of the Month embrace 4 flavors of Sydney’s sorghum puffs (Cheddar, BBQ, Bitter Cream & Onion, and Sriracha) and two styles of Renée’s dried fruit (Ginger Lime Jackfruit and Salted Olive Oil Plantain Chips).
A collection of these snacks will seem in each FruitGuys Considerate Snack Field, exposing each manufacturers to 1000’s of eaters such as you. They’re additionally obtainable by the case all March for corporations who need to go the additional mile to help an authorized women-owned small enterprise.
Sydney and Renée are proud to run WBENC-Licensed women-owned corporations.
“I don’t simply say we’re women-owned, I say we’re proudly woman-owned!” Sydney instructed The FruitGuys. “I’m tremendous happy with myself and who we’re as a model. Our workforce is definitely 100% feminine proper now and we work with numerous feminine companions. I’m a giant believer within the cliché that ‘empowered girls empower girls’ and utilizing the corporate as a platform in order that we will empower girls and future leaders.”
Renée shared comparable ideas, and added that she hopes her women-owned small enterprise will encourage extra girls to affix the snack trade particularly.
“This trade might be very male-dominated. I’ve discovered a lot help and solace from different feminine founders, so it’s necessary to me to proceed to construct out that ecosystem so folks have a community, really feel represented, and might enter the area confidently,” she stated.
Ugandans holding Amäzi snacks
In case you’d wish to help these inspiring girls and their missions to assist folks and the planet throughout Ladies’s Historical past Month, contemplate ordering their snacks by the case.
Get Ladies-Owned Snacks for Your Workplace
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