Vancouver’s Asha Wheeldon finds success with tasty African and Caribbean cuisine
When COVID hit in 2020, Wheeldon shifted her business to selling online. The next step of Kula’s growth was experimenting with vegan soy proteins. “I wanted to create a barbecue option,” Wheeldon explains, which led her to develop vegan ribs and a barbecue chicken meal alongside no-sugar barbecue sauces and pili pili, a spicy East African sauce. “We needed a sauce for our proteins, and we eventually ended up creating it from scratch because we couldn’t find anything on the market that would be suitable, with low or no sugar added, but also tasted good,” she says.
By the end of 2021, Wheeldon had pivoted from stews to focus on vegan protein meals and partnered with local online grocery retailers including Vegan Supply and Spud to sell her products. With that came another pivot, from jars to recyclable bags to package her products. “The jars were too heavy in a freezer,” Wheeldon explains. “We could not scale that.”
Wheeldon also began making progress getting her products on the shelves of major grocery stores, but it took her many years and several “noes” along the way, with buyers telling her the product was too niche. But, Wheeldon persevered and, by mid-2022, landed her frozen meals in eight IGA stores in British Columbia. Another major win came in 2023, when Kula Foods launched in 12 Whole Foods Market locations across Canada. “When I was testing out the stews, I would shop at Whole Foods,” she recalls. “I remember manifesting this idea that my products will be on the shelves at Whole Foods. It was such an important milestone for us.”
Also in 2023, came two new plant-based meal products: G.O.A.T. curry and ginger beef. Then, in late 2024, another grocery chain—Loblaw-owned Fortinos—began stocking the company’s sauces in all its Ontario stores. Kula Foods has plans to venture even further afield in 2025, launching at an upscale grocery chain in California. And soon, Wheeldon says Kula Foods will be introducing new products. “We have a functional seasoning line that speaks to East African and Caribbean flavours that also is infused with mycelium,” she explains.
Kula Foods is currently available in 100 grocery stores. Wheeldon says that number will jump to 300 by the summer of 2025. For Wheeldon, growing Kula Foods isn’t just about a business succeeding, it’s about representation. “As a Black woman, being able to provide a product that is culturally relevant to myself, it’s very powerful,” she explains. “These opportunities are not always necessarily available. I love being able to bring that joy and access to larger communities and people that either resonates with them or introduces them to a new flavour.”
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s December2024/January 2025 issue.