Rooted in generations of tradition, Mina is much more than just a food brand. Through the passing down of stories, traditions, and love, the brand celebrates Moroccan heritage and family recipes. Founder, Fouad Kallamni, is guided by the recipes of his mother, Mina herself, to carry on the legacy. In this article, Kallmni tells us how the brand crafts pantry staples that bring the taste of Morocco into home kitchens, without compromising authentic taste.

Mina stems from generations of culture and taste, how does that essence translate to the products the brand offers?
We’re a family business, so everything we do is a direct reflection of our family’s culture, traditions and style. Of course we pay attention to the marketplace and what consumers are interested in. But ultimately, our decisions about what to make, and how the brand shows up in the market, come down to what feels most authentic to our family.

How has time and collaboration influenced the recipes that bring Moroccan favors to home pantries?
For us, it really hasn’t. Our mother Mina was a professional chef and caterer, and her taste and recipes have been the source of direction for our brand since we started. We’re not a brand that chases trends. We’re about sharing Moroccan flavors that have been around for centuries and are going to outlive us for centuries.

Our goal is to make authentic flavors accessible, so we do modify our recipes in the sense of making them extremely easy to enjoy at home without a lot of fuss. Our simmer sauces are a perfect example. They taste exactly like a true homemade Moroccan tagine sauce that would require a dozen or more ingredients and many hours of prep. But it’s all ready-made for the consumer, so they just must layer a few ingredients into a Dutch oven with the sauce to create an incredible meal.

What does the process of sourcing ingredients from family farms in Morocco look like? What difficulties does sourcing outside of the U.S. bring?
We’re proud that all products are made in Morocco, and the bulk of our ingredients are sourced there as well. Overall, sourcing and manufacturing in Morocco brings more pros than cons. Of course it increases the authenticity of our products. It also allows us to make the most of our relationships with the farmers who grow our ingredients. The olives for our oil actually come from a single-family farm, and the peppers for our harissa come from a farmer we’ve worked with for ten years.

Business relationships in Morocco are different from the US, and much more personal — which ultimately brings a lot of advantages. Our peppers are a great example. We use a special variety, and together with out supplier, we’ve set up a program to harvest and dry the seeds of last year’s crop, then plant them for next year and the year after. This approach saves costs for us, while also creating employment for the local community. Without the close, collaborative supplier relationship we’ve developed over years, we probably would never have come up with this plan. We love sourcing direct from Morocco and have actively built that standard into our business. The only con we’re facing is the 10% tariff recently imposed on imported goods from Morocco.

You are very transparent about the ingredients used in Mina products. Without the use of preservatives, artificial coloring and flavoring, how do you achieve consistent, and delicious results?
It all begins with the same simple ingredients and recipes our mother used at home. We start there, then stay as true as we possibly can to that process when producing at a larger scale. Nothing gets to mass production until my mother and I have taste-tested and personally approved it. And once it’s in production, we have strict quality control process to make sure each batch is consistent and true to the original recipe.

Mina first began with the harissa sauce, why was this recipe the one you chose to launch the brand with? We always envisioned a large range of authentic but modern Moroccan pantry staples. But we didn’t want to enter the market with too many different products all at once. Moroccan food wasn’t well known in the US market at that time, and we didn’t want to confuse consumers. We knew that Americans love sauces and condiments and are very open to trying new things in that category, so harissa was the perfect first product. It’s easy to fall in love with because it’s delicious on almost anything. But it’s also a strong, faithful representation of the taste of Morocco.

The Mina website has a recipes tab showcasing ideas that involve some of the products. What goes into coming up with the meals your team creates and shares?
We all love food and grew up in a home that revolves around food, so coming up with recipe ideas is natural for our family. It’s a team effort. We all contribute ideas and collectively decide on our favorites, then bring in our creative team to develop the content and shoot our lifestyle photography.

Everyone that works on the brand is a foodie, and we tend to work with the same people over many years. So, by now creating our recipe content is almost effortless. We can just share the basic idea for a dish, and the photographers put together something beautiful that we hope will inspire consumers to want to make it themselves.

Like all companies, you receive different feedback from customers. How do you define if a family recipe needs to be modified for the American consumer?
We do receive a lot of feedback and thankfully most of it is positive. We don’t really modify our recipes because because our goal is to make the consumer experience as authentic as possible and stay true to our heritage. But we do sometimes get new product ideas from consumer feedback. For example, we decided to offer a mild version of our harissa alongside our original, which is pretty spicy. That way consumers can choose what they prefer, but we have’t “watered down” the traditional recipe. When we were growing up, our mother would do the exact same thing in our home. She made a milder harissa for us when we were still too young to handle the spicy grown-up version.

Of course, the one way we do modify our recipes is to make them as convenient as we possibly can. That’s really the essence of what Mina is all about — preserving extremely authentic flavors, but with minimal fuss for busy home cooks. We want everyone to get to experience the flavors of Morocco, even if you weren’t lucky enough to grow up learning how to cook this way from scratch.

Since its foundation in 2010, Mina has expanded its product offerings. Do you have any plans for creating new products or flavors?
We always have new products in the works and will definitely be launching more Moroccan specialties in the future.

As Mina grows, how do you plan to keep the spirit of generational tradition and cultural heritage alive?
As long as our family is our family, Mina will stay true to our heritage and culture. It’s rare in today’s market, but we operate as a true family business. We all keep each other in check. When a new product or idea comes up, it has to feel right to me, my brother and our mother before it moves forward. So that’s a lot of people paying close attention, and we all care enormously about the quality and authenticity of our products and our brand.

Another thing that keeps us on track is really investing in our relationships with suppliers, agencies and other partners who help bring Mina to life. We only work with teams that love food and culture the same way we do. The passion has to be there, and if it’s not, then it’s not a good fit.

For our family, Mina has always been more than “just a business” — and that’s something that is never going to change.

Website: https://mina.co

Interview by Sabine Obermoller, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Daniel López, Art Director, PhotoBook Magazine

Mina, Celebrates Moroccan Heritage & Family Recipes