TAYLOR — Seven years ago, Farrah Moussallati Sibai spent long hours each week forming fresh falafel by hand to sell at Austin farmers markets.
The labor-intensive Mediterranean fare was a hit. In 2018, Afia Foods — only in its second year of operation — was a finalist for Texas grocer H-E-B’s Quest for Texas Best contest.
Bolstered by that endorsement, Farrah and her husband, Yassin Sibai, found success getting a frozen version of the product into hundreds of stores around the country. They recently moved the fast-growing operation from Jarrell to a new manufacturing facility on the edge of Taylor.
“Afia” is a toast in Arabic to health and well-being, a concept at the center of Afia Foods frozen falafel, kibbeh and a line of heat-and-eat frozen meals using ingredients that weren’t created in a laboratory.
“Consumers are demanding and requesting global flavors,” Farrah Sibai said. “It’s an authentic, homegrown recipe and people are really happy to have something ready in 10 minutes.”
Last June, Afia landed a $3 million second round of equity financing from venture capitalist firms and angel investors to move to a 21,000-square-foot manufacturing facility with 25 employees and expand the product line and distribution.
Afia’s origin story is firmly rooted in Syrian tradition. The “little black recipe book” that Yassin Sabai’s mother, Fadia, took with her when she fled Syria with only what she could carry is spoken of almost reverently.
It was from this book that her daughter-in-law would eventually find the inspiration for the falafel and kibbeh to start the business.
Falafel, a staple of Mediterranean cuisine with a 5,000-year history, is a clean and natural protein source made with garbanzo beans, also known as chickpeas, herbs and spices.
Kibbeh is another primary food of Syria and Lebanon made from ground meat and cracked wheat called bulgur.
Farrah and Yassin Sibai are both natives of Syria. She was raised in the United Kingdom and moved to Austin with her daughters 12 years ago after meeting Yassin through family.
He came from Syria to earn his degree in computer operations and eventually worked in the U.S. finance and software industry during the dot.com boom.
Yassin Sibai moved to Austin 18 years ago and left the corporate world to help with Afia as the business rapidly expanded and needed to secure capital investment to reach the next step.
The couple have five daughters between them, all attending universities.
When they look back at the early days of Afia foods, the Sibais said they faced struggles to become the leader in their market sector.
Limited time with the children as the business grew was one consequence of the company’s early growing pains, although they would often join their parents in selling at the farmers markets.
“It’s different now, but we had to go through all those steps to get here,” Farrah Sibai said.
“I don’t miss making falafel by hand,” she added with a laugh.
Despite the nationwide expansion in recent years, there is no doubt Afia is still a family affair.
Yassin Sibai’s mother Fadia occasionally comes by the new Taylor facility to do her own quality control of the family recipes.
“When we started out, we were so small we couldn’t employ anybody. So my mother-in-law and the kids were really all hands on deck,” Farrah Sibai said. “So she’d try every single batch. Now, we’ve grown and we’ve got people here, but she still comes to the facility and still goes on the (manufacturing) line to make sure.
“And if she doesn’t make it out she’ll be like ‘bring me a bag of falafel, or bring me a bag of kibbeh.’ She’ll take it home, check it and make sure it’s up to her standard. I’ve got to keep up to my mother-in-law’s standard.”
The attention to authenticity and quality has paid off in customer satisfaction.
“Everybody who has purchased it has been a repeat customer,” said Hayley Blundell, owner of Taylor’s sustainable foods store Hayley’s Grains at Second and Main streets.
Blundell said she carries two of the ready-to-microwave meals but is planning to expand into additional Afia products based on the response since she started carrying the local product earlier this year.
“It’s an easy dinner or lunch with all clean ingredients. It’s not ultra processed and the fact that it’s local is a bonus,” she said.
Afia’s offerings are now in 250 H-E-Bs in Texas, 500 Whole Foods nationwide and many more stores in eastern U.S. regional chains such as Wegmans, Harris Teeter and Publix.
The larger facility in Taylor also is adding numerous Kroger locations in April and select Target stores with a grocery section nationally in May.
“H-E-B is incredibly proud of what Farrah Sibai and the Afia team have achieved since we first met her and her family when they competed in the H-E-B Quest for Texas Best contest in 2018,” James Harris, H-E-B senior director of Diversity & Inclusion and Supplier Diversity, said in written statement.
“Their products appeal to an array of customers and global flavor seekers, which has made them a premier Mediterranean brand in the U.S. with their products now shipping from coast to coast,” Harris added.
Afia expects to have about 30 employees by the middle of the year and, to date, has had no trouble finding workers to staff the manufacturing line.
It has been more difficult to recruit specialized roles such as marketing, sales, food safety and technicians this far from the urban core, Yassin Sibai said.
They see Taylor as the long-term home of Afia with the ability to scale up seven to eight times the company’s current production over the next seven to 10 years.
The presence of Afia and Frozen Logistics, a third-party refrigerated storage facility for the food industry, in the same business park is a promising start, making Taylor a possible hub for more foodmanufacturing businesses, Farrah Sibai said.
“I’ve already had conversations with a few of them (food manufactures ready to expand) and they’ve asked me about this area and how manufacturing has been here and how it was building out here,” she said. “So anytime I get to speak to anybody who actually does their own manufacturing, I do shed a light on how great it has been here for us so far. Just being in Taylor has been really good for us so far.”
Easy access to Interstate 10 and Interstate 35 using U.S. 79 and Texas 130, a tollway, make East Williamson County an ideal location for regional and national distribution.
“Since we moved here, we’ve had no issues with pickup and delivery,” she said. “I’m hoping we will grow our manufacturing facility further in this area in addition to bringing in more manufacturing and co-packing.”
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