History (Stephanie's story)
Twenty five years ago I was a stay-at-home mom raising four kids. To save money, I learned how to cook from scratch and made vegetarian and then vegan meals two or three times a week. I started making my own recipes, experimenting with vegan substitutions. It didn’t make financial sense to work outside the home, so I made cookies and muffins and bread and sold them on consignment in little neighborhood stores. I discovered that I absolutely loved to cook and create new, healthy, sometimes vegan foods to feed my family and my neighbors.
My mom was a dietician and my grandmother was a nurse. After my great-grandfather had a heart attack, my great-grandmother Sweetie - the company's namesake) found ways to cook traditional Black Southern food without the fats and other ingredients that bring on high blood pressure and diabetes. I grew up eating her delicious Sunday dinners – cornbread, collard greens, chicken (without the skin), lots of vegetables (without the animal fats): healthier food.
The women in my family were very conscious of the need for healthy food. I just could not let go of the vision of honoring our food traditions while integrating healthy, vegan and vegetarian alternatives. I started Sweeties to do just that, taking my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother’s commitment and awareness to the next level. My mom took the smoked turkey out of the sautéed kale and replaced it with bouillon cubes; I make kale, sometimes a raw version, with chipotle, adobe, and olive oil. My sweet potato pie is a vegan pie sweetened with agave syrup. I make a gluten-free fried chicken vegan alternative with textured vegetable protein that is seasoned and baked. The goodness of this food matches my memory of those childhood Sunday dinners.
Though I’m not a vegan, I support a healthy lifestyle. Sweeties uses local, fresh, and organic ingredients as much as possible. We also offer meat recipes, but do not cook with any pork products.
My other love is making our word a better place to live through community organizing. I never thought I could work these two passions together. With Sweeties, I get to cook good healthy food, serve it to my community in a conscious way, build our local economy, be intentional about creating collective economics for people of color, meet my financial needs, and feed people and communities who are actively engaged in anti-racist work. I feel incredulous and grateful every day.
Just like I knew I wanted to honour my food traditions, I always knew what beliefs and values I would raise up one day when I started a business. One is transparency, especially around pricing. I share the actual cost of the food and the suggested retail price with my customers. Sharing that information is a new way of doing business that builds trust. A second belief and value is interdependence. I know without a doubt that while we are separate individuals that we are connected to the whole. We all need each other.
In the black communities where I grew up, even as a child, I noticed food at the corner store you would not find in other neighbourhoods. There were big jars of pickles and pig feet and white bread and brands of cookies and chips you would never see anywhere else. There was no produce and very little fresh food, but every kind of alcohol and cigarettes. Low quality, cheap food that was nevertheless expensive. There is a direct correlation between what we eat and how we think and feel. We can look at socio-economic status and race and see what food is available in what communities. Food is a weapon of oppression. But is can also be a tool for liberation. Quality food matters to me.
I believe in respect, respectful, living wage work places. There are a lot of folks who have been compromised by the criminal justice system that have felony records. If they are able to find work they are likely to be paid minimum wage. If they have children and have no access to state support, finding work can be nearly impossible. Sweeties pays everyone a living wage of at least $14/hour. We treat people with decency and respect. I want to grow the business so we can offer health and wellness benefits, including access to fitness classes and personal development.
Sweeties caters for Organizing Against Racism (OAR-NC) North Carolina’s racial equity workshops led by trainers from the Racial Equity Institute (REI). I encourage my co-workers (regardless of their race) to participate in these trainings, I want to bring them into this organizing work and the movement for racial justice. People of color have internalized the oppression we have experienced in this country. With Sweeties, we can understand and transform internalized oppression while also teaching people a trade and a skill.
My mom was a dietician and my grandmother was a nurse. After my great-grandfather had a heart attack, my great-grandmother Sweetie - the company's namesake) found ways to cook traditional Black Southern food without the fats and other ingredients that bring on high blood pressure and diabetes. I grew up eating her delicious Sunday dinners – cornbread, collard greens, chicken (without the skin), lots of vegetables (without the animal fats): healthier food.
The women in my family were very conscious of the need for healthy food. I just could not let go of the vision of honoring our food traditions while integrating healthy, vegan and vegetarian alternatives. I started Sweeties to do just that, taking my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother’s commitment and awareness to the next level. My mom took the smoked turkey out of the sautéed kale and replaced it with bouillon cubes; I make kale, sometimes a raw version, with chipotle, adobe, and olive oil. My sweet potato pie is a vegan pie sweetened with agave syrup. I make a gluten-free fried chicken vegan alternative with textured vegetable protein that is seasoned and baked. The goodness of this food matches my memory of those childhood Sunday dinners.
Though I’m not a vegan, I support a healthy lifestyle. Sweeties uses local, fresh, and organic ingredients as much as possible. We also offer meat recipes, but do not cook with any pork products.
My other love is making our word a better place to live through community organizing. I never thought I could work these two passions together. With Sweeties, I get to cook good healthy food, serve it to my community in a conscious way, build our local economy, be intentional about creating collective economics for people of color, meet my financial needs, and feed people and communities who are actively engaged in anti-racist work. I feel incredulous and grateful every day.
Just like I knew I wanted to honour my food traditions, I always knew what beliefs and values I would raise up one day when I started a business. One is transparency, especially around pricing. I share the actual cost of the food and the suggested retail price with my customers. Sharing that information is a new way of doing business that builds trust. A second belief and value is interdependence. I know without a doubt that while we are separate individuals that we are connected to the whole. We all need each other.
In the black communities where I grew up, even as a child, I noticed food at the corner store you would not find in other neighbourhoods. There were big jars of pickles and pig feet and white bread and brands of cookies and chips you would never see anywhere else. There was no produce and very little fresh food, but every kind of alcohol and cigarettes. Low quality, cheap food that was nevertheless expensive. There is a direct correlation between what we eat and how we think and feel. We can look at socio-economic status and race and see what food is available in what communities. Food is a weapon of oppression. But is can also be a tool for liberation. Quality food matters to me.
I believe in respect, respectful, living wage work places. There are a lot of folks who have been compromised by the criminal justice system that have felony records. If they are able to find work they are likely to be paid minimum wage. If they have children and have no access to state support, finding work can be nearly impossible. Sweeties pays everyone a living wage of at least $14/hour. We treat people with decency and respect. I want to grow the business so we can offer health and wellness benefits, including access to fitness classes and personal development.
Sweeties caters for Organizing Against Racism (OAR-NC) North Carolina’s racial equity workshops led by trainers from the Racial Equity Institute (REI). I encourage my co-workers (regardless of their race) to participate in these trainings, I want to bring them into this organizing work and the movement for racial justice. People of color have internalized the oppression we have experienced in this country. With Sweeties, we can understand and transform internalized oppression while also teaching people a trade and a skill.
©2014-Present. Stephanie Perry Terry, Sweeties Southern & Vegan Catering, L3C, Chapel Hill, NC.