Seeing extra West African meals in grocery shops? Thank Hyde Park co-founders of AYO Meals for the shift.

The frozen meals that AYO Meals creates and markets sit subsequent to P.F. Chang’s meals in Goal’s freezer part.

However AYO Meals founders, Perteet and Fred Spencer, would like their fare be subsequent to Amy’s Kitchen, the natural packaged and ready meals large.

“Should you take a look at our caloric consumption, our protein content material, our fiber content material, it’s very comfy, if not higher than a few of the different sort of ‘higher for you’ frozen gadgets on the market,” Perteet Spencer mentioned. “And I can assure you it’s going to be way more flavorful.”

The Spencers launched AYO Meals, an array of West African frozen meals and scorching sauces, in July 2020. In two years, they’ve expanded into shops nationwide, together with Chicagoland Mariano’s, Heinen’s and The Contemporary Market shops.

Frozen choices vary from jollof rice to cassava leaf stew, egusi seed soup simply begging for some doughy fufu to sop up all of the wealthy flavors, and rooster yassa, a preferred dish of slow-braised rooster thighs with lemon and caramelized onion.

The couple partnered with “High Chef” alumnus Eric Adjepong and chef Zoe Adjonyoh — cookbook writer and founding father of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, to advertise West African delicacies by way of the model. Because the daughter of a Liberian immigrant, Perteet Spencer mentioned she believes everybody deserves to see themselves after they stroll down the grocery aisle.

“We’re speaking about a whole continent not represented in grocery shops,” Perteet Spencer mentioned with an incredulous tone. “It’s not a monolith; we’re speaking about 17 completely different international locations (in West Africa). Each tribe, each nation, all of them have their distinctive means of doing issues.”

The regional cuisines share related elements, and “it’s simply the method of cooking — the completely different seasoning and flavors that you simply use — that separates them,” her husband mentioned.

Earlier than making recent egusi stew with egusi seeds, rooster, onions and collards, Perteet makes her strategy to an African market on Foster Avenue and Broadway to collect dried crawfish and shrimp powder, seeds, and iru, also referred to as locust beans. Now, a model of the identical dish with such hard-to-find elements is on the market at dozens of shops throughout the nation.

“We’re actually excited to take folks on this journey by way of West Africa to permit them to expertise the flavors and elements,” she mentioned. “The frequent mark that unites the meals are these actually slow-cooked, layered flavors … that’s fairly in step with every thing, whether or not it’s the dough rising on the puff puff, or the stew simmering on the cassava leaf.”

Fred Spencer likens the AYO Meals course of to cooking soul meals, with huge pots, layered flavors and hearty, conventional fare.

However discovering methods to retain the depth and high quality of these slow-cooked dishes on a mass manufacturing scale took severe effort, Perteet Spencer mentioned. At one level, she introduced in her mom so producers may shadow her preparation with a view to do it correctly and never rush the method.

“We’ve got a lot of horror tales early in our journey of companions that didn’t work out as a result of they needed to hurry up the method,” she mentioned. “When you’ve got a pot of greens, the very best ones are people who cook dinner low and sluggish. We would have liked to honor that course of as we discovered companions to scale this up.”

The end result are ingredient lists which might be acquainted and alluring: roasted garlic puree manufactured from merely garlic, further virgin olive oil, and thyme accents the rooster yassa; simply 5 elements comprise the fried puff puff bread.

“We’re utilizing recent greens, we’re doing that slow-cooking course of. We’re not reducing corners,” she mentioned. “It was actually essential for us to honor the method and never brief change it as we went by way of our journey. It’s simply how we function.”

That operation started three years in the past, when the Spencers, DePaul College school sweethearts, seen market tendencies altering.

“We noticed this large rise in world flavors, an enormous hole in flavors of the continent in whole,” she mentioned. So she left her company job as a model supervisor with Common Mills to convey pleasure to the world — ayo means “pleasure” in Yoruba — full time, with Fred’s urging and assist.

Whereas she takes credit score for introducing her husband to Liberian meals, she mentioned she realized methods to cook dinner from her father. He i emigrated from Lofa County, the northernmost portion of Liberia, to the Twin Cities in Minnesota at age 17, bringing with him cooking that reminded him of residence. Her mother and father would finally meet in Minnesota.

Perteet and Fred’s massive households function inspiration to the meals model, but it surely’s the pair’s love of meals that’s the nexus of AYO Meals. Fred, an actual property developer, opened a restaurant when he was 24 years outdated (one thing he mentioned the couple would possibly get again to sometime). With a grandmother from Alabama, the Roseland native recollects cooking as a childhood chore, as a result of he would get all of the tedious meals prep duties. However that’s modified since he’s gotten older.

The household affair that cooking has all the time been is now one the youngest Spencers are selecting up. Perteet and Fred’s daughters, 11 and eight years outdated, just like the kitchen a lot, typically they should be pushed out of the house. Their oldest tries to get her biscuits as flaky as her father’s, and she or he’s at the moment engaged on perfecting her macaroons, mentioned Perteet Spencer.

“They love being concerned within the kitchen with us,” she mentioned. “I didn’t begin cooking till school, and to see them begin so younger, it’s thrilling to see. You’ll be able to’t have household collectively with no ton of actually unimaginable meals.”

The primary AYO Meals dishes have been these the couple personally love — jollof rice, egusi soup and cassava leaf stew. The couple prides themselves on AYO Meals being wealthy in vitamins and low in sodium.

“Weight problems is at an all-time excessive, diabetes is at an all-time excessive, hypertension is at an all-time excessive. We couldn’t in good conscience put out a product that was a contributor to all of that,” Perteet mentioned. “I believe one of many issues that AYO does actually superbly is show that meals will be good and attractive, however nonetheless be good for you. We needed to actually have the ability to set a mannequin for that.”

The plan for the model is to broaden past frozen meals to convey higher inclusivity and variety to cabinets. AYO Meals already has pepper and shito sauces — the previous is habanero-based, the latter has a seafood base, complemented by scorching peppers, tomatoes and caramelized onions.

“We began with frozen primarily as a result of it’s the best transition to have genuine elements — not including preservatives or something like that — to convey the true essence of the meals,” Fred Spencer mentioned. “However we wish to make this a broad model, versus simply frozen.”

The self-described “huge dreamers” know the platform AYO Meals permits has a whole lot of wingspan to make an affect above and past celebrating the tradition by way of packaged meals. The Moonboi Venture is the Spencers philanthropic effort born from that platform — one which enriches the West African tradition.

In December, AYO Meals partnered with Woman Energy Africa, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls and kids impacted by civil struggle and Ebola in Liberia by way of entrepreneurship. AYO is supporting the cultivation of 15 acres of Liberian farmland, the Spencers mentioned.

“A part of what we’re doing with these dishes is bringing consciousness to those crops, to this meals, which we hope in flip creates elevated demand and financial change in West Africa,” Perteet mentioned. “Already we’ve constructed three houses, totally cleared the land, (and) we’re beginning to see the primary crop yield. And the yield of that’s truly getting used to offer again to girls who have been victims of both Ebola or the Liberian civil struggle as seed capital to begin companies of their very own.”

Seeing the affect the meals model is offering in such a short while has the Spencers excited concerning the potential of AYO Meals to not solely change the lives of their speedy households, however different communities in determined want of assist, as effectively.

“If something can get throughout from any of that is that, AYO was created as a household firm,” Fred Spencer mentioned. “We’re doing this as a household collectively, and that’s what’s going to make it profitable.”

drockett@chicagotribune.com