A Fi Mi Snacks flying off shelves

Providing a delectable snacking experience to relive, again and again, A Fi Me Snacks have been flying off shelves.

With superfood options of breadfruit, sweet potato, and coco root (taro) chips, thinly sliced and fried to provide crisp flavourful offerings dusted with Sea Salt, Cajun, Sweet and Savoury, Rosemary and Sea Salt, and Scotch Pepper and salt seasonings, among others, it seems snackers are pleased.

This June marks the company’s first anniversary; however, starting it was purely by happenstance, confirms Chief Executive Officer Adrianna Bryan, who first tried her hand at making breadfruit chips at a backyard barbecue in 2017. When COVID-19 hit and her hand-made jewellery business, Exotic Child, started to feel the financial pangs of the pandemic, Bryan remembered how people loved the breadfruit chips she made years prior and decided to give them another try.

“It took me three months after I remembered the breadfruit chips to actually get the courage to do it – but I did it,” Bryan reminisces. Buying breadfruits and hiring a chef to help with the frying, she asked her father to assist with the initial packaging stages. Creating a social media platform to test the market, she also notes she gave away a lot of the product for feedback and to start to gain brand recognition.

She credits Christina Simonitsch of Simo’s for making the company’s first big order for The Commissary, and after that, she says things started to take off.

A Fi Mi Snacks are now available at CPJ, Grab N Go, Liguanea Drug and Garden Centre, Monarch Pharmacies, LFA Country Store, Fresh Approach, General Foods, Butcher Block, Total Gas Station Manor Park, Dayna’s Coffee Barrel, Natural Health Food, Eastern Cuisine, and Cannonball Café, to name a few, and the list keeps growing. Online locations include Caribshopper and Yaahdy.com.

How has she been able to get her products on so many shelves within a year?

“I went out and put myself out there. Giving out a lot of free samples. Meeting people and being persistent,” she says.

Now with a staff complement of five, she explains that it has not been easy building her food business, and that she has her hands in everything, from cleaning and frying to interviews.

“It’s hard work. I am not only a boss, but I am also a leader and am never too big to do the dirty work,” says the Excelsior High School alum.

There is no ‘puss in a bag’ purchase for A Fi Mi Snacks consumers, as the clear packaging allows one to see exactly what they’re getting. An added incentive, with a notch located at the top of the package, snackers can simply tear down to create a bowl and, with the addition of their own creative mixings, can make a meal. Think loaded nachos – but with breadfruit.

The chips pair well with many things, including dips, soups, and salads. You can even explore culinary ingenuity with a tip from Bryan, “crush the chips and coat chicken before frying”.

With plantain chips set to be added to the offerings, Bryan’s vision for A Fi Mi Snacks is to be a household name, continuing to grow locally but to also be internationally known.

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com