When customers first meet or see a picture of Abisola Abidemi, owner of Abisola Whiskey, they’re often surprised to learn that she owns a liquor business. “Many people expect an older, white man to be behind an alcohol company, not a young, Black woman,” she told us. Like Abidemi, many Black business owners we spoke to say they started their companies to ensure that stories about Black Americans are included in conversations around what we eat and drink. But it’s an uphill climb: “The gap in capital is tremendous,” Abidemi says about the willingness of financial providers to back Black-owned versus white-owned businesses. That’s why shoppers play a key role. Buying from Black-owned companies economically supports them and expands their customer base.
Below, we’re highlighting notable Black-owned brands in the food and beverage space that we think are worth checking out. We confirmed with each brand on our list that they’re at least 51% Black-owned, which is in-line with the Census Bureau’s definition of a Black-owned business.
SKIP AHEAD Black-owned food brands | Black-owned beverage brands | Black-owned wine and spirit brands
Black-owned food brands
A Dozen Cousins
Ibraheem Basir, founder and CEO of A Dozen Cousins, grew up in Brooklyn and says food was always at the center of big family gatherings. In addition to native Southern dishes, Basir’s mother picked up Latin American and Caribbean recipes from neighbors. As he got older and sought to recreate these dishes himself, he found it challenging: “I either had to cook them all from scratch or use processed options with ingredients that I was trying to avoid,” Basir told us. This motivated him to start A Dozen Cousins, which offers rice, beans and sauces inspired by traditional Creole, Caribbean and Latin American flavors.
Dr. Flava Spices
Throughout her 15-year career as a pharmacist, Dr. Tremaine Afetorgbor saw patients battle diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Many struggled to adjust their diets to support a healthier lifestyle, and she wanted to help make eating nutritious foods more enjoyable for them. Afetorgbor created a line of seasonings for at-home cooking, including All-Purpose Original Everything and Creole Lemon Pepper. The brand’s seasonings are available in salt-free and lower sodium options.
Iya Foods
Toyin Kolawole, founder and CEO of Iya Foods, grew up in Nigeria as the first daughter of five children. She often helped her mother in the kitchen and studied businesses in school, which ultimately led her to blend her family recipes and entrepreneurship education to start Iya Foods. Through her company, Kolawole told us she shares her African heritage with families while nourishing them with quality, non-processed foods.
Southern Roots Vegan Bakery
While its gourmet vegan donuts first put Southern Roots Vegan Bakery on the map, the brand now offers cinnamon rolls, volcano cakes, cookies and more. It ships its desserts nationwide and recently expanded into over 150 Sprouts grocery stores nationwide. Owners Cara and Marcus Pitts make their sweets in San Antonio, Texas and say the treats’ flavors are inspired by their Southern roots.
Jetta’s Gourmet Popcorn
Magita Barbee — also known as Jetta — originally founded her popcorn company as a seasonal snack cart in 1997, but she began selling year round due to customer demand. You can purchase popcorn in standard flavors like butter, olive oil and white cheddar, as well as custom mixes like the Westside Mix, Breezin’ Mix and Caramel with Milk Chocolate. When she’s not running her company, Barbee teaches computer technology, business and entrepreneurship in Detroit Public Schools.
Bell’s Reines
Bell’s Reines is owned by a mother-daughter duo, Teneisha and Angel Thompson. The brand’s first cookies were based on recipes from Angel’s food blog, Dulcet Scintilla, and over the years, Bell’s Reines added additional flavors to its repertoire, including gluten-free and vegan snickerdoodle, matcha white chip, oatmeal raisin and double choco chip. The brand’s small-batch cookies are baked by hand and made from nut-free ingredients.
Berry & Thyme
Berry & Thyme’s preserves are free from artificial preservatives, commercial pectin and thickeners to best highlight the botanical ingredients they’re made from. Founder Erin Burrise develops all of the flavors she sells, like pineapple and habanero, papaya and vanilla and blueberry and sage. The brand also offers marmalades and syrups.
Capital City
Capital City’s Mambo sauce is a ketchup alternative that’s sweet, sticky and tangy. Founder Arsha Jones ate it while growing up in Washington, D.C. and missed it when she moved to the suburbs as an adult. She started making the sauce at home for her family before deciding to bottle it for customers. Jones runs the company with her husband, Charles Jones.
Mumgry
Anyone can enjoy Mumgry’s nut butters, but founder Lillian Umurungi-Jung specifically developed them to meet the dietary needs of moms (or mums) before, during and after pregnancy. She had trouble finding snacks that were low in sodium and sugar yet high in protein and vitamins like iron, calcium and omega 3s while pregnant, so she created her own. The brand sells standard peanut butter as well as flavored nut butters like chocolate hazelnut spread and pistachio chocolate almond butter.
Egunsi Foods
Cooking is one of the ways Yemisi Awosan remains connected to her Nigerian heritage while living in the United States. In 2017, she began selling some of her favorite prepared foods to share West African flavors with customers. Egunsi Foods offers ready-to-eat soups and sauces like Ata Di Din Sauce and Gbegiri Soup, all of which are vegan, gluten-free and soy-free.
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Black-owned beverage brands
The Black Leaf Tea & Culture Shop
Amber Jackson, founder of The Black Leaf Tea & Culture Shop, uses her background in food science to create tea blends for customers to enjoy at home. She also dedicates part of her business to engaging with the Black community. Jackson hosts monthly events for young Black professionals to connect Tea Talks, which Jackson says is a “space where [Black individuals can] talk about things that matter to us in a space that’s just for us.”
Coco5
Coco5 is a sports drink with electrolytes and minerals free from chemical additives, dyes, caffeine and high fructose corn syrup. It was developed by a group of nutritionists and sports medicine experts from the Chicago area, and today, it’s led by pro athletes and sports commentators. According to the brand, Coco5 is currently stocked in over 65 collegiate and professional sports locker rooms. You can purchase it in flavors like cherry, passion fruit and limon.
Flyest
Shanae Jones is an herbalist who spent six years studying plant medicine before launching Flyest, a tea company inspired by hip-hop culture. The brand’s blends are made with ingredients Jones sources from small herb farms and co-ops. Each tea blend has a different flavor, and options include Blood Orange, Breathe, Not Coffee and Yella.
Sip Herbals
Sip Herbals was born from the founder’s desire to find an alternative to coffee. Orleatha Smith and Kelly Raulerson call their herbal drinks “faux joe,” which you brew similar to loose-leaf tea or coffee grounds. You can enjoy Sip Herbals’ beverages hot or iced and purchase a standard blend that tastes similar to coffee and blends in flavors like peppermint mocha and cinnamon roll.
Sibahle Teas
After realizing how detrimental sugary soda was to her health, Regina Brewton turned to tea instead. She grew to love sipping on teas harvested in countries like Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa and Kenya, which inspired her to start her company. Brewton says Sibahle — “we are beautiful” in Zulu — celebrates the beauty of loose-leaf African tea. The brand’s products are named after affirmations like “I am Mindful,” a green mint tea, and “I am Smooth,” a bourbon vanilla rooibos.
Adjourn Tea House
LaTonia Cokely was an educator for over 13 years before starting Adjourn Tea House, which specializes in organic, full-leaf tea blends. While drinking them, Cokely hopes customers take a moment to themselves, pause and recenter, which is why she says she first fell in love with drinking tea. Adjourn Tea House was featured on The Magnolia Network in 2022, where Cokely shared how she creates each tea blend. You can purchase the brand’s teas online, including Mint Juju, Sunday Morning and Home Sweet.
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Black-owned wine and spirit brands
Sorel Liqueur
Jackie Summers, CEO of Sorel Liqueur, left his 25-year corporate career in 2010 after surviving a cancer scare. He decided to dedicate his life to preserving Caribbean culture by creating an alcoholic, shelf-stable version of a traditional hibiscus-based beverage. He launched a micro-distillery in 2012, also when Summers says he became the first Black person in the U.S. to hold a distiller’s license post-prohibition.
McBride Sisters Wine Company
While starting their business, co-founders Andréa McBride John and Robin McBride told us that one of their biggest challenges was not being taken seriously as winemakers in a white, male-dominated space. The success of their businesses has helped to break the status quo around what winemakers look like, the sisters say. One of their goals is to use their platform to empower women of color. In 2019, the sisters launched the McBride Sisters SHE CAN Fund to provide professional development scholarships and grants to emerging female leaders.
Abisola Whiskey
Aboisola Abidemi’s original goal for 2020 was to buy a house. Instead, she pursued a different dream: Starting her own whiskey company. “I realized that there’s no real representation or celebration for the modern-day whiskey drinkers,” she told us. Many people think of whiskey as harsh and smelling bad, so Abidemi created Abisola Whiskey, which she says is a non-traditional, smooth-tasting liquor that appeals to a wide audience.
Love Cork Screw
Chrishon Lampley focused on building Love Cork Screw after her Chicago art and wine bar was destroyed in a flood. The company sells a variety of wines, including sauvignon blanc, cabernet and rosé, plus wine-scented body butters and candles.
Grown Folks
Danica Dias grew up in a big Louisiana Creole family where adults often came together to enjoy food and drinks. Doing so was the epitome of being “grown,” so as a child, she referred to the adults who attended the gatherings as “grown folk.” Now an adult herself, Dias imagines her hard seltzers as the beverages her loved ones would have sipped on when they spent time together. The canned drinks taste sweet and come in flavors inspired by soul food like key lime pie, ambrosia and peach cobbler.
Iylia
Layla-Joy Williams spent over 20 years designing shoes for major brands in the fashion industry before making a career pivot and starting Iylia, her wine company. The brand produces its wines in the Valencian region of Spain, including rosés, whites and reds. Iylia also partners with charities throughout the year and donates some of its profits to them. Currently, $1 of each Iylia wine purchase goes to The Deliver Fund, a nonprofit that works to end human trafficking in the U.S.
Why trust NBC Select?
Zoe Malin is an associate updates editor at NBC Select who covers minority-owned businesses, including women-owned brands, AAPI-owned brands, Latino-owned brands and LGBTQ-owned brands. For this article, she rounded up food and beverage brands that confirmed they’re at least 51% Black-owned, which aligns with the Census Bureau’s definition of a Black-owned business.
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