A Daughter’s Story Inspired By Her Mother’s Recipe
The story starts from a childhood memory like we all have some within our life. This story is about Gaelle and how she felt motivated to start a business of her own after shifting to Canada as an immigrant. Are you all curious to know what exactly she made? The recipe she made was Chin Chin which is a African sweet snack which is mainly prepared during special occasions like weddings, baptism, or any festivals.
It has two ways to make it a Nigerian way and a Cameroon way. As Gaelle is from Cameroon so her mother made it in a very traditional Cameroon way which is crispy and crunchy. She shared a memory when in childhood her mother used to prepare it and she loved having it while it was hot and fresh.
I think everyone can relate to this as we all have something which our mother made and we as kids loved having it. Also, she remembers saying that her mother used to hide it so it does not get over soon and everyone gets a chance to taste it.
When Gaelle shifted here as an immigrant she missed the taste and remembered how she learned to make this Chin Chin recipe and made it home, which she loved it. So a thought struck her head why not make this and start selling it as business. She wanted to give this taste to all the immigrants who missed their home and the taste of having a snack which they miss after immigrating.
With this she started her Chin Chin business two years back which she named All African Delights. She introduced chin chin in various flavours like chocolate, vanilla and lemon. She also had chin chin made in different shapes and packaging. Her main motive was to target immigrants and give them the taste of chin chin.
Initially she started selling it through website and introducing chin chin in food markets to people. She also received orders for corporate events where it was distributed as snacks during meetings. She provides a customized packaging with different flavours and shapes.
She got the most response from food markets she did where people saw and tasted it, they also gave her feedback about chin chin and how they liked having it. She came across a lot of immigrants who told her they had similar thing in their childhood too which their mothers made it. Some of the immigrants included people from India where it is known as Shakkar para and Kulkul, also pasta fritta in Italian, uraro in Filipino, mandazi in Kenya, ollybollen in Germany.
So this is the reason chin chin is known much more to immigrants as they connect with something they had back home. Also, she got a mixed reaction from customer through while doing the food market, as some found it deep fried and called it unhealthy but Gaelle still wants to keep its authenticity for people who loved it.
With this Gaelle wants to create nostalgia amongst immigrants and wants to attract more customers. With increase in demand, she is now just going ahead with the basic vanilla flavoured chin chin, all other flavours are available on request and are customized when pre ordered.