Ameen Fadel started a pita chip business called “Cedar Valley.”  This business started as a high school project.  He received $3,000 from his school board and worked with his mom to make a Lebanese salad dressing– this is a family recipe.  It took two years to finalize the recipe.  In 2017, they went to their first farmer’s market. They sold pita chips with the dressing, but people wanted to buy the chips too.  This was the first step changing what they thought the business would be.  Ameen Fadel and his mom got a facility to make the chips and then got their products into grocery stores.  In 2020, they moved into a 5,000 square foot location to keep up with the demand.  They continued to expand to over 1,800 retail locations.  In 2023, they went onto the “Dragons’ Den” which is Canada’s version of Shark Tank and made a one million deal.

It is amazing how Ameen and his mom stuck with this idea.  It took them a whole two years to finalize the dressing, and that is not even their business today.  They did not become discouraged, but rather thrived in their iterations.  In the beginning, they focused so much on this one product that they were blinded to other opportunities until they talked with their customers.  They took so many risks, but these were also calculated and needed.  They risked by changing their main product and risked by the continual expansion.

This family was driven by wanting to share with the world their experiences and their love for their heritage. They did not initially think this could be as profitable as it was today; they were not in it for the money!  They started at a farmer’s market, but their internal motivation fueled them to continue.

Check out them at their website: https://cedarvalleyselections.ca/

Vinusha, who started her own baking business at nine years old, decided that she would make her mother a birthday cake. After using countless resources, videos, and friends to help her bake the cake, she was able to surprise her mother, all while realizing that baking was something she was good at and wanted to pursue. Four Seasons Pastry, sells exclusively cupcakes, and despite it being a new business, Vinusha has achieved significant success.

She landed an internship at a five-star hotel café, while also selling over 600 cupcakes since 2019, which she makes in her free time at home. Covid-19 did cause Vinusha’s business to struggle, but she felt lucky to have many supportive influences around her, like her parents and her three mentors. Suresh Chinnaswamy, Lakshmi Reddy, and Geethakrishnan Sir, her three mentors, have excelled in fields of baking, and made names for themselves in the world, much like Vinusha is doing.

Being a young entrepreneur is a difficult job on its own, but Vinusha takes it a step further by juggling her own business, her schooling, and baking lessons. She practices new Indian recipes with her mother in the free time that she does get, where she’ll practice making dishes such as Butter Chicken, Gobi Masala, and Paneer Butter Masala. Baking truly takes over Vinusha’s life, and she mentions that her entrepreneurial goals do sometimes clash into her academics. She will often finish her studies, then go straight to her kitchen to practice more baking.

Her dreams for Four Seasons Pastry are limitless, although she does also dream to pursue an education at a prestigious culinary school in either France or Switzerland. She hopes to develop a way to make her desserts healthier, and then develop a website to advertise and sell her cupcakes.