Food and entrepreneurship were woven into Toyin Kolawole’s DNA long before she launched Iya Foods in 2015. Growing up in Nigeria, as the first born girl of her family of five, Toyin spent much of her childhood assisting her entrepreneurial mother in a series of successful small businesses. She was immersed in African ingredients like cassava, plantains, brown tigernut and fonio. Now, as a mother of two, Toyin continues to surround herself with African superfoods in Illinois, where Iya Foods is based. “Cooking is how I show love to my kids,” she says. Her choice to name her brand “Iya” is a nod to how she hopes to feed us real, whole foods. It translates to “mother,” a word that has the same sentiment no matter what part of the world you are in.
The seeds of nutrient-dense food and innovation were planted during Toyin’s childhood in Africa. They took root and blossomed after she moved to the United States in 2003, where she graduated with an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University. Upon graduation, she worked in private equity, then, in the footsteps of her mother, founded her own series of startups. Iya Foods—her fourth and final entrepreneurial endeavor—is her own flavor of market disruption. Toyin is on a mission to introduce the African superfoods she grew up with into a global market; but on her own terms.
Iya Foods Supports African Superfoods
Iya Foods sells baking mixes, flours, powders and spice blends that are cut with high-nutrient ingredients like cassava, fonio, cacao and hibiscus. “We take everyday foods and innovate them,” says Toyin. She uses overlooked whole-food ingredients that are more nutritious and flavorful than singular-ingredient blends, like the enriched flours devoid of nutrients that take up much of the shelf space today. Her pancake and waffle mixes have five different kinds of flours in them. She has nine different flour blends, like tapioca, tigernut and plantain; five superfood powders, like celery, beetroot and pumpkin; and spice blends for Jollof Rice Pilaf, Piri Piri and Pepper Soup—an homage to the foods from her West African childhood.
Now Toyin is in the midst of a new product launch with Chipers,™ a cross between a chip and a cracker that uses a blend of nutrient-dense ingredients like fonio flour, flax and melon seeds. “There are food products today that don’t even have food in them,” she says. “They just have oils and chemicals.” She aims to disrupt a market saturated with foods that don’t improve quality of life with a product line full of African superfoods that will help feed the world, but in an ethical and sustainable way.
Why Iya Foods Uses the Ancient Grain Fonio
“Fonio is the most sustainable solution to our food crisis today,” Toyin says. She’s seen how this resilient crop can flourish in an increasingly changing climate where temperatures are rising and dramatic weather shifts are constantly taking place. Fonio is drought-resistant, doesn’t demand crop rotation and can be grown and harvested in less than four months. It’s naturally gluten-free, high in protein, minerals and amino acids. “Ingredients like fonio will help us continue to feed the world,” she says.
Fonio’s ability to thrive in hot, dry climates while offering high nutritional yields isn’t the only reason Toyin chose to add the ancient grain to her product line. Offering a variety of African superfoods in her mixes and blends ensures Toyin won’t lose the ability to bring her products to market if and when there’s an abrupt shift to ingredient access, an ever-present challenge that is increasingly commonplace. “When you add an additional ingredient to your product—like fonio—and there’s a disruption to the supply chain, it’s easy to make up for it when you have access to other ingredients with nutritional value.”
How Iya Foods and Terra Ingredients Support One Another
Toyin places holistic farming practices and sustainability with the same weight of importance as profits and a bottom line. So when she was selecting a supplier for her organic ingredients, it was important for her to find a vendor who sourced in a way that benefits everyone in the food supply chain; especially the oft forgotten farmers, without whom we would’t be able to eat. “Farmers are at the bottom of the prosperity chain,” says Toyin. “We have created a system where the people growing food aren’t prospering in a morally fair way. And they are the ones who play a crucial role in feeding us.”
Toyin saw a similar set of beliefs and values in Terra Ingredients. “We both believe in shared prosperity and integrity of purpose,” she says. “We are an American company who has planted a flag in our African values. We care about the farmer, and so does Terra. They’ve put their efforts and resources into Africa.”
Terra Ingredients works directly with African farmers to grow, harvest and process fonio in an efficient way that supports local farmers and communities. This approach mirrors Toyin’s core value of creating a supply chain that helps everyone—from farmer to consumer—prosper in a more equitable way. “Terra wears a problem solving hat,” she says. “They have an innovative approach to food prosperity. And when you have an innovative approach to problem solving, your mind is open to different ways to getting to an end goal versus just looking at ways to make money.”
“Combatting food insecurity and global challenges is a coordinated effort. As a consumer, you should care about how companies treat their farmers and suppliers,” she says. “If they aren’t fair to them, they aren’t going to be fair to the customer.” Toyin believes in setting up sustainable sourcing practices that benefit everyone in the supply chain. Terra believes in the same.
Working Together to Rebuild a Broken Food Supply Chain
Where some food brands might view the supply chain as a straight line from farmer to consumer, Toyin sees it in a different shape. “It’s a circle, not a ladder,” she says. “And the more we join the circle, the stronger it is.” She believes in working with companies like Terra Ingredients because they both want the same thing: for farmers and local communities to prosper and for consumers to have consistent access to high-quality food.
“Everyone needs to eat,” she says. “We are all adding to this food ecosystem, we’re all in this together. I believe as we know better we do better. Terra does too. They’ve put a lot of resources into ensuring the fonio supply chain is sustainable and dependable in its quality and pricing.”
