A Pandemic Pivot Helped These Californians Launch Successful Food Businesses

The California Report Magazine

This week we're featuring stories from our ongoing series Flavor Profile, featuring folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic.

Gas Station Filipino Dessert Shop Is Among NorCal’s Most Delicious Secrets

Inside a nondescript National gas station off the 205 in Tracy, is Ellis Creamery. Marie Rabut and her husband Khristian got the idea to open the shop in 2020 as a way to supplement their income after Khristian lost his tech job in San Jose. Tired of long commutes for work, they wanted to stay local and saw the shop as an opportunity to bring Filipino flavors to their community. KQED's Katrina Schwartz went to find out how they're adding their own unique spin to traditional Filipino desserts.

How SF's Rize Up Sourdough Puts Black Bakers on the Map

Like many others, San Francisco's Azikiwee Anderson took up making sourdough during the pandemic. Once he mastered the basics, he started experimenting with ingredients no one had ever put into sourdough: gojuchang, paella and ube. Those flavors transformed his hobby into a successful business that wholesales to bakeries and restaurants across the Bay Area. All this success has made Azikiwee rethink how the food industry brings equity into the workplace, and how to elevate cultural appreciation, not appropriation, through ingredients. KQED's Adhiti Bandlamudi tells us how Anderson wants to give a chance to more Black and Brown bakers, because of his own experience feeling like an outsider as a Black man interested in commercial baking.

This Spicy, Crunchy Chili Topping Is the Essence of Balinese Flavors

Celene and Tara Cerrara had successful careers, one a doula and the other a make-up artist, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Then, they both lost their jobs and moved home where they rediscovered a passion for cooking their native Balinese food. They started a successful pop up, Bungkus Bagus, and are now transitioning towards packaged products. Clare Wiley brings us their story from Glendale.

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