Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aston & Sierra Anglin-Stone. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Aston & Sierra, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Aston’s POV: Growing up I ate everything and was an athlete almost all of my life. I ended my athletic career in Track and Field at A&T University and even though I was no longer working out, I still had the same eating habits. Those eating habits quickly turned into minor health issues; pre diabetes, elevated cholesterol, weight gain, cavities. I needed to change my life ! Healing starts from the inside out so the first step was changing my mindset which lead to me changing the things I ate. I went on a 30 day juice cleanse. It was the hardest thing I have ever put my body through but I was determined to break habits and start over. With my progression people quickly started to notice and ask me to make them juices as well so they can start their own health journey. After my 30 days I reversed every health issue that my doctor was concerned with and I was steadily making juices for my family and friends. Every time someone would take a sip of my juices they would say “WOW ! This juice is FRESH AF!” I was having so many people ask me about my juices, Sierra had to create a website and social media page and Fresh AF was born.

There’s a need for fresher and healthier options in the south; home of fried foods and high sugar diets. The vegan population is growing in a fast rate and people in general are becoming more health conscious. Coming up with the food truck was an easy decision for us. There was nowhere in Greensboro that had good vegan food. We started our vegan food truck to show other people that vegan food can actually be delicious and it’s more than hotdogs and hamburgers.

Aston & Sierra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We are Aston and Sierra and we own a vegan food truck and cold pressed juice company. We both grew up in Raleigh and met in 2005 our freshman year of high school. Sierra went off to study Broadcast Journalism at Arkansas State University and Aston studied Mechanical Engineering and Business at A&T State University. Aston went vegan in 2018 but had the hardest time finding whole soy free vegan food. During COVID we started the cold pressed juice portion of our business. Targeting people who wanted to heal and stay healthy the holistic way. Once gaining popularity, people wanted more. They wanted vegan food. A year later we dropped everything and started a vegan food truck. The problem with being vegan in the south is that it’s very limiting. The most vegan food you can find are hamburgers and salads. We want to prove that there’s more to veganism. We’re very proud of our food and how it’s changed the perspective of people that are not vegan.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Becoming an entrepreneur means you work 24/7. We knew we would have to work hard consistently but we didn’t know it would be consistently around the clock. We had to reprogram ourselves to not have a “9 to 5” mentality. We learned very fast that having a 9 to 5 is actually easier than starting and running your own business. We thought we would get into our business and just hire help where we needed, still go on vacations, have family or couples time and then reality set in our first year. We took for granted the things that our corporate jobs does for us; insurance, hiring employees, maintenance. When you own a business you are the social media manager, you are hiring manager, you are the booking agent and the CPA.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

We met at Garner High School. We had a science class together and we actually weren’t really fond of each other at the time. It wasn’t until the next semester or year we had French class together and we instantly became very close. We remained friends throughout high school and college and adulthood. We spoke often and even visited each other in college from time to time.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.freshafvegan.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/freshafvegan
• Facebook: Facebook.com/freshafvegan