Alayah Hewie, outside the house the Stony Brook University Food Company Incubator kitchen area in Calverton, sells her Rena’s Aspiration Patties frozen and prepared to be baked at property to flaky perfection.
For Alayah Hewie, as it was for so a lot of foods enterprise entrepreneurs, March 2020 was a turning stage.
When the pandemic strike, she had been occupied testing recipes for Jamaican patties with hopes of launching her Rena’s Aspiration Patties manufacturer in a greater way. “I’ve usually cherished Jamaican patties,” Ms. Hewie said. “I think they are the perfect meals.”
In its place of quashing her plans, the pandemic enthusiastic her to go ahead with them in earnest. Ahead of that, she stated, “I was not really cozy marketing, but for some rationale Covid gave me the power to start a Square website.” That allowed her to get credit card payments. She started slowly, offering three flavors of frozen patties in containers of 4 and six by way of her Instagram account, turning out about 60 a 7 days.
She employed a hand-crank pie and turnover equipment, “and I had to get the job done hours in the kitchen to get 60.”
By final summer season she was building Rena’s Aspiration Patties in batches of 300 and advertising them at farmers markets in East Hampton (opening for the time on Sunday), Springs, and Riverhead and at a handful of retail destinations which includes Schiavoni’s Market place in Sag Harbor and Serene Eco-friendly in Noyac.
She offers six different fillings now — curry coconut kale and sweet potato, chickpea and potato curry, curry hen, spicy beef, moderate beef, and cheeseburger. Just about every utilizes the same flakey pastry crust and draws upon the savory and piquant traditions of Jamaican delicacies, with an East Conclude twist. “I required to make use of the regional food items method here and support regional farms. I consider to source as domestically and sustainably as probable.”
Ms. Hewie lives in Bridgehampton, but grew up in East Hampton. The identify of her enterprise, and, truly, the patties them selves, are a tribute to her late grandmother Rena Hewie Stoutt, who in 2011 opened Jamaican Specialties on North Key Street in East Hampton. The shop brought Caribbean pantry and grocery products as well as the spice-infused flavors of common Jamaican delicacies to loyal consumers throughout the South Fork for a few several years.
Ms. Stoutt, who was born in Jamaica, worked in banking but experienced prolonged dreamed of opening her very own industry or restaurant. When she did so at age 63, Ms. Hewie was there to support, operating together with her until Ms. Stoutt fell ill and died in 2014.
Just after her grandmother died, Ms. Hewie desired to go on her legacy, but was not very sure how at initial. While she has worked about foodstuff in a single way or one more for most of her adult everyday living, she admitted that she wasn’t significantly of a cook dinner when she was youthful. “I experienced a grandmother who cooked so effectively and my mom cooked every solitary night for me and my brothers and my sister. I never necessary to understand.”
Then, when functioning as a cafe associate at the East Stop Food Institute’s South Fork Kitchen area at Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus, she started to experiment with patty recipes.
At Jamaican Specialties, “We used to sell a large amount of Jamaican patties,” Ms. Hewie recalled. “We had been shopping for them from a major distributor centered in the Bronx. . . . I wanted a patty that was healthy and additional all-natural and refreshing. I didn’t want to use enriched flour.”
The institute presented professional kitchen place to other startup food items corporations, and the folks who ran them had been generous with their advice, Ms. Hewie said. Her experiments with the pastry part of the patties led her to a recipe that is dairy-totally free while however getting sensitive and flaky, so the vegetable patties are also vegan.
When she was all set to mature the organization, she connected with Stony Brook University’s Food items Enterprise Incubator in Calverton, which provides meals startups like hers enable with scaling, packaging, labeling, advertising and marketing, and distributing their solutions. “Anything just lined up and I just had no justification but to test.”
The application has a shared-use commercial production kitchen, additionally house for readying the goods for current market. “I loved how it had a extensive-term approach for startups,” Ms. Hewie explained whilst demonstrating a visitor all over the house early this thirty day period. “You can sort of develop within just the building.”
The Covid-19 pandemic pushed a lot of small food producers like Ms. Hewie to turn aspect gigs and enthusiasm jobs into more substantial ventures. Right before Covid, there had been 20 food businesses functioning out of the facility, nowadays there are 73, explained Yvonne Schultz, the incubator’s supervisor.
“There are so quite a few providers below at so many various degrees,” Ms. Hewie claimed. “I understand a lot from the other businesses. It really is just about like a loved ones.”
Rena’s Aspiration Patties continues to be a side gig for Ms. Hewie. She also functions as a catering assistant at Stony Brook Southampton Medical center, underneath the dietitian. Catering assistants aid see that the individuals get fed and that the issues they’re eating while in the healthcare facility sq. with their nutritional constraints. “I’ve generally been drawn to food. If it isn’t going to have anything at all to do with foodstuff, I get rid of fascination.”
But if she could see Ms. Hewie turning out these delectable Jamaican treats with recipes she formulated herself, “My grandmother would have been amazed.” It is good to say, she would also have been very very pleased.
