AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

For any­one nav­i­gat­ing the bustling con­crete jun­gle of Port-of-Spain, the hunt for the per­fect meal is not just rou­tine.

It is a sur­vival tac­tic to pow­er through the gru­elling work­day.

But amidst the many street food ven­dors and fast-food out­lets lin­ing T&T’s cap­i­tal, Zu­lu Foods is on a mis­sion to pro­vide a health­i­er op­tion.

Lo­cat­ed along Rich­mond Street at Gov­ern­ment Plaza Parkade, the busi­ness was start­ed by the wife-and-hus­band duo of Si­mone Mar­tin-Gilbert and Jumoke Gilbert as a tra­di­tion­al veg­e­tar­i­an food busi­ness and has to­day trans­formed in­to a one-stop shop for read­i­ly cut and peeled fruits.

The name Zu­lu Foods was the brain­child of Si­mone, in­spired by her fa­ther’s meat-free lifestyle.

“My fa­ther is veg­e­tar­i­an be­cause he tru­ly, tru­ly be­lieves that we were not meant as hu­man be­ings to be con­sum­ing an­i­mal flesh,” Si­mone told Guardian Me­dia.

“But even if you are not veg­e­tar­i­an, you would want to be able to still con­sume rich and qual­i­ty healthy prod­ucts that you could add to your di­et.”

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing from uni­ver­si­ty with a de­gree in ma­rine bi­ol­o­gy, Si­mone found it dif­fi­cult to se­cure a job in her field. But three years lat­er, she redi­rect­ed her ca­reer goals to­wards plant-based and veg­e­tar­i­an food en­tre­pre­neur­ship. With the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of her then-boyfriend, Jumoke, the two not on­ly found life­long de­vo­tion to each oth­er but al­so a shared de­vo­tion to their grow­ing busi­ness.

“In 2018 when we start­ed, we had a full meal spread, so there was less fo­cus on the fruit sal­ad bar and less fo­cus on the juices. We were try­ing to fo­cus pri­mar­i­ly on the meal op­tion,” she ex­plained.

“But a lot about own­ing your own busi­ness is re­al­ly and tru­ly giv­ing peo­ple what they want, cater­ing to your au­di­ence.”

When the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit, Zu­lu Foods had to shift gears to sur­vive the eco­nom­ic fall­out.

Tran­si­tion­ing the fruit sal­ad bar in­to their pri­ma­ry of­fer­ing was meant to be a tem­po­rary fix, but it ul­ti­mate­ly re­vealed it­self as Si­mone and Jumoke’s true des­tiny.

“At the time, it was to tem­porar­i­ly cease the meal spread and fo­cus on what the peo­ple are grav­i­tat­ing to­wards. Which was the fruit sal­ad, the juices and the smooth­ies, right, and the pas­tries.”

To­day, the menu is a di­verse spread of health-con­scious fu­el.

Si­mone notes that their of­fer­ings, f rom tasty corn and cups of savoury chan­na to po­tent well­ness shots made with or­gan­ic in­gre­di­ents tar­get­ing im­mu­ni­ty, detox and en­er­gy, are ex­plic­it­ly built around the needs of the cap­i­tal’s work­force.

But it is the wide va­ri­ety of fruits that tru­ly com­mands at­ten­tion. Fea­tur­ing year-round sta­ples like wa­ter­mel­on and pa­paya along­side high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed sea­son­al favourites like man­go, hon­ey­dew mel­on and can­taloupe, the busi­ness op­er­ates on a re­fresh­ing­ly ac­ces­si­ble mod­el. Cus­tomers can sim­ply state the ex­act dol­lar amount they wish to spend, and the fruit is weighed and served ac­cord­ing­ly.

And they’re con­scious about bud­gets as well.

“That is the most im­por­tant thing. Be­ing able to ap­peal to every­one. Be­ing able to ap­peal to the per­son that has a $20 bud­get for the day. Be­ing able to ap­peal to the per­son with no bud­get.”

“You could have $25. You could get a juice, you could get a cup of chan­na, and you might get a shot of gin­ger. And that is very im­por­tant. That’s the on­ly way I feel like you should do busi­ness. Where you cater to the peo­ple that re­al­ly and tru­ly need ac­cess it. You can come Zu­lu Foods with $5, and I will make sure you get your $5 in fruit!” Si­mone said.

The proof of their suc­cess is un­de­ni­ably in the vol­ume. Ac­cord­ing to Si­mone, the team process­es be­tween 40 and 60 pineap­ples every sin­gle day, to­talling an im­pres­sive 700 to 800 pounds of pineap­ple per week. Meet­ing this de­mand re­lies heav­i­ly on the gru­elling ded­i­ca­tion of the cou­ple and their staff, who be­gin peel­ing pineap­ples at 4 am.

“I would say the big joke by us is pine, who­ev­er is in charge of pine. Like the first day you put any­body to do pine, it’s like they have a pan­ic at­tack be­cause it’s the moun­tain of pine, you have to go through. Yeah, it is a lot,” Si­mone laughed.

Be­yond the fruit bowls, pa­trons reg­u­lar­ly line up for fresh­ly pressed fruit and veg­etable juices, avail­able both sweet­ened and unsweet­ened. This in­cludes a sur­pris­ing crowd-pleas­er: car­alie (bit­ter mel­on) juice.

“They come for the carailie (juice)! That bit­ter mel­on is very good at reg­u­lat­ing your blood sug­ar lev­els in the body. It is very good for you.”

Look­ing ahead, Zu­lu Foods plans to ex­pand its menu fur­ther by in­tro­duc­ing fresh, pre-packed sal­ad op­tions and veg­gie wraps while broad­en­ing its line of juices and well­ness shots. These will com­ple­ment their cur­rent bak­ery se­lec­tion of whole-wheat, egg­less and gluten-free pas­tries, which fea­tures their spe­cial­ly made veg­gie-meat pies, whole-wheat sweet bread and cur­rant rolls.

Through it all, Si­mone and Jumoke main­tain that Zu­lu Foods will for­ev­er re­main com­mit­ted to a 100 per cent veg­e­tar­i­an, an­i­mal-prod­uct-free menu.

For them, the well­ness of their cus­tomers is the ul­ti­mate bot­tom line, and they in­sist that a health­i­er lifestyle is an open in­vi­ta­tion for every­one, not just strict veg­e­tar­i­ans.

“Even if it is, you are not the most health-con­scious per­son. At some time or the oth­er, you are go­ing to want to take care of your­self. Why not do that now?”