We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jiomarys Alers a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jiomarys, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The idea of making authentic vegan Puerto Rican food was by total accident! Throughout the years, my husband and I have always researched and watched documentaries on healthy eating and benefits of them and we have tried different eating habits along the way. Veganism felt like the right choice for us after several things happening to us and our family. Let me explain- I was told by doctors that I could not have a baby for health reasons, after nearly a year of trial and error, visiting different doctors in different states, using natural oils, changing my eating habits, applying holistic chiropractic care and lots of faith, prayer and perseverance (to keep this story short), I was able to get pregnant! I was in my early 30’s. This was the most joyous time of our lives after so many trials and heartache, defeat and doubts, we were beyond thankful to God for this miracle and beautiful gift. Fast forward to when our baby girl, Amaia Kayra, was 11 months old, my mother-in-love, Margie, passed away unexpectedly in 2017. This was the most painful time we have ever experienced, our life was changed forever. Here I am, juggling the many changes at once. When I became a mom, I quit my job in the social work field at a non-profit for 7 years to be a mom and wife. This alone was a major life shift and not as exciting as it sounds (mom’s know what I mean), not to seem ungrateful, because I absolutely was. It is an honor and privilege, but it was not easy. Our baby girl was cholic and I was restless, exhausted and cried almost everyday. I was also removed from my social life because you know, a new mommy, breastfeeding and schedules, the non-mommies don’t get it. And trying to be a good wife, Lord knows how much I failed at that! I just wanted sleep for my sanity. haha- I can laugh now! Thank goodness that’s only for a season and it doesn’t last forever. We had also moved to a new place and my husband had started a new job. Add to this mix, Momma passing away so suddenly, imagine me having to pick up the pieces, staying strong for my husband whom I had never seen grief like this and quickly turn dark, lonely, depressed, lost, confused, all of the stages of grief and beyond while my mommy hormones are all raging too. This was a lot, it was so much to bare. I felt like we were drowning in so much family turmoil and I just kept pulling myself up and out to God to sustain us because I could not fall apart at the same time as my husband. One of us had to stay firm and strong and it was my time to do just that (through my own pain and grief). During this time, my husband was overweight and had several health issues- in his early 30’s he had a fatty liver, high cholesterol, elevated blood pressure and stress patches where he had circular bald spots all over his head and beard. This was his health-wake-up-call. My husband decided to take control of his health because our daughter needs his daddy for as long as he can. We saw a documentary that confirmed all of the research we had done through the years and after watching it, I got up and went straight to the kitchen. I opened all cabinets and drawers and decided this was it. I said, “We begin now” as I threw out all the junk that did not serve us. After making the decision, I started thinking about our daughter and how I didn’t want her to miss out on her Caribbean food, our traditional dishes and comfort foods. I didn’t want her to miss out on la comida criolla, la comida Boricua, de Puerto Rico. So I had to start playing with dishes and recipes. It was big for me to not compromise on the flavors and textures and it was crucial that I kept them as close and as pure to the original dishes as possible. I wanted to remain as authentic as possible. When my friends and family would come over, they would be so surprised and complement the food and encourage me to think of the possibility of selling the food. This all started because I wanted to reserve our cultura for our baby girl. In early 2018, we decided to start fresh and move to South Florida, where I always dreamed of living and when my cousin introduced us to a farmer’s market nearby, the idea just took off and we took a chance and tried it out. In about a year, my husband lost 35 lbs and was able to heal himself completely from all of his illnesses without working out. Today, he’s 80 lbs lighter.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am the owner and chef of Bangara. I offer authentic Puerto Rican vegan food at the Coconut Grove Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. I began veganizing my traditional family recipes for our own family and because our friends and family loved it so much, I was encouraged to dive into it and offer it to the world. With the support of our loyal clients in South Florida, we have been able to share this love with different Pop Ups and festivals such as The Vegan Block Party, VegFest, Earth Day Fest, Seed Week Festival, etc. We offer our vegan Latinx community the opportunity to enjoy the typical Puerto Rican foods they grew up eating in a veganized way, such as alcapurrias filled with shredded jackfruit and tastes just like una alcapurria de pollo, empanadas, pasteles, mofongo topped with fried oyster mushroom or fried jack’n (our version of fried chkn made with jackfruit), sancocho, pinchos, and the list goes on. You ask and you shall receive!
We are most proud of the wonderful reception and feedback we get from our Bangara framilia. Our loyal clients mean the world to us. We are also proud of being able to feed over 500 homeless in South Florida. We take 10% of our sales to give back to our community. Serving others is a big piece of our hearts.
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
Haha! This one’s a funny one because my business partner is my husband. We met in 2005. I was in college. My roommate at the time, Nicole, and I decided to go have pizza as our semester goodbye. We went to one of my favorite Pizzeria’s in Springfield, MA- Antonio’s on State St. When I enter the Pizza spot, I suddenly hear this deep, loud voice talking to someone, it definitely caught my attention unexpectedly. My body began tingling from head to toe. I am not lying you guys, I had never felt this in my life. It was such tingling and specific sensation, I have never felt that again. It took over me and I just had to know where that voice came from. I look over and it’s this gorgeous man. He walks out and I’m bummed I couldn’t see more of him. When we’re done eating, my roommate, a friend and I walk out. There he is! He’s outside on a table promoting healthy energy drinks and the business he was in at the time. He walks over to my friend as my roommate and I get in my car and asks him if he could use some more money. My friend says no to him and I’m thinking, “what? who says no to that type of question?” so I lean over my roommate and pull my arm out over my roommate and yell, “I could use some more money!” He walks over to the driver’s seat where I was and gives me his business card. He was all business, not very friendly, but I liked it. I drive away and this is the biggest miracle for someone who never intended to be married or have children, I tell Nicole, “he’s the one. I’m marrying him”. She looks over at me in disbelief, laughs and tells me I’m crazy. Yup! We met up for business a few times, I never showed I was interested in him and the rest is history. I fell in love first, but he fell for me hard! Ask me the rest later! haha.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Growing our business through a pandemic was challenging yet hopeful. We had to reroute what we had already had organized and set up. When big events came along and staff would cancel last minute, we had to reach out to friends and/or post on social media for help. At times, when we didn’t get the help we needed, we would just do it ourselves. It’s also challenging not having family here and also dealing with inconsistent babysitting for our daughter. A lot of times, it has felt like having a regular job is easier, but our mission is important. The pandemic taught us that we had to shift and get creative on promoting our business.
We had to find new suppliers for when the ones we relied on did not have what we needed in stock and often times didn’t have what we needed for months. The prices going up was a challenge for us because we didn’t want to raise our prices on our customers. Thankfully we were able to weigh it out and only add a dollar or two on a dish or two while keeping other prices the same.
We were faced with having to wear all of the hats when we were short-staffed. We had to prep on our own when staff would cancel last minute and work around it. We worked over time and often sleep 3-4 hours a night because we just had to get it done. When major events would cancel because of Covid, we had to take the financial hit. Giving up is not an option, we would buy locally, we would do meal preps and deliver food ourselves from Cutler Bay to Fort Lauderdale.
We learned how to promote ourselves organically and authentically through our social medias. I will not pay for following, We build this business in truth and honesty and we want to keep it that way. I connect and personally respond to every comment and DM/inbox message. I handle Instagram and Facebook and my husband handles TikTok. We still don’t know exactly what we’re doing or how to do it perfectly, but we’re doing something and that’s getting us somewhere!
We have bootstrapped this business all the way. We pack, load, unload, clean, wash and organize our vendor’s tent on a weekly basis ourselves. We are looking to hire an honest and loyal staff so that we can expand our menu and start offering shipping of our frozen goods. We get this question often and we would love to make it happen! We need a consistent team who loves to serve and join our mission.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/bangaravegan
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BangaraVegan
- Other: linktr.ee/bangara/