Black-Owned Businesses You Need to Know About

Young Mary's is a handmade home fragrance business that produces candles, wax melts and oil diffusers with scents and fragrances inspired by different parts of Africa. Named after her grandmother Mary, who raised her when she was young, Young Mary's was founded by Lola Jemibewon (a Nigerian-American who now calls the UK home). After Lola made the big move from the US to Nigeria, it didn't take long for her to rediscover the wealth of beauty Nigeria, and most of Africa, had to offer. She wanted a way to share her love for the continent with people near and far so armed with her hobby of candle making and storytelling, Young Mary's was born.

Mission Statement:

At Young Mary's we have one mission; to help you escape the chaos of modern life by filling your home with one-of-a-kind scent combinations that transport you across the world. With our unique range of handmade home fragrances, inspired by the sights and sounds of Africa, we're here to help you journey through your senses, sharing stories and encouraging conversations from places you may not have expected.

My name is Parys Gardener, I'm a multi-award-winning contemporary digital illustrator from Bristol who's passion derives from creating artwork that represents people of colour - particularly Black women, empowering them to feel seen and heard.

I create memorable work, described as pop art with a modern edge. My visual vocabulary explores pop art techniques utilising block colour, tone and pattern in an engaging way.

Rose Chocolates is a small black owned business that specialises in creating bespoke, luxury and divine, chocolates for gifts and events. All our chocolates are freshly handmade using fresh ingredients and hand painted.

We take pleasure and love creating personalised chocolates, our aim is to create beautiful experiences with chocolate and art, creating a self care, artistic, indulgent exquisite treat to gift, enjoy for yourself or have at memorable events.

We create chocolates for gifts but also for many events such as weddings and anniversaries, but also company launch events, company gifts, masterclass events and more. Our aim and passion is to create chocolates that not only taste amazing but chocolates that are crafted beautifully.

Enjoy 25% off the whole site with discount code: HOBBYCRAFT25 (expires 31/10/2021)

The Founder of Rose Chocolates, Jonathon, is a pastry chef inspired by taking chocolate courses, with the passion of creating beautiful flavours and tastes of chocolate. Jonathon has worked in many places; hotels, restaurants, private member clubs such as Tom's Kitchen, Blue Print, Charlotte Street Hotel, Hotel Cafe Royal, The Hari, and more!

Justine is the content creator of Rose Chocolates, she is also the chocolate designer and hand paints the chocolate art. She is also a paediatric nurse and trained in mental health with the aim of putting her passion of trying to help heal and encourage feelings and expressions through chocolates.

My long standing love for beads was the foundation of LB Beads. I create one of a kind beaded designs that are wearable pieces of art, unique and made with ethically sourced beads. I love the variety and textures of beads I use in my creations, beads made of wood, shells, recycled glass and plastic, recycled brass, paper. Nothing goes to waste.

I enjoy the creative process, telling people about how the beads are made, and meeting other creatives.

Nkiti clothing is a UK based designer that specialises in creating casual African Print clothing that is unique. Founded by a husband and wife duo, nkiti blends African print and basics into unique designs that can be added to your daily rotation.

We hold a lane of our own because, typically, African print clothing are custom-made occasion wear and rarely worn on a daily basis.

Our vision is to create modern, high quality African Print clothing that pays homage to our ancestry. We do this by incorporating African prints, African languages and the bright colours that are characteristic of our culture into our designs.

We love what we do for many reasons, but the main reason is this: our clothing is an access point for any and everyone who is excited and curious about African culture. It represents a fusion of western and African clothing styles that inspires Africans in the diaspora, Africans in the continent and non-Africans to celebrate our culture in their everyday style.

Cairo is a writer, producer and social entrepreneur with a focus on marginalised womxn and Black Communities. She is an award-winning playwright and poet, with two collections of poetry. Her first book, SUNSHINE AND RAINDROPS was published in 2016 and landed her on the list of ten unsung 'phenomenal Black British authors' by The Voice Newspaper. Her second collection, SEARCHING FOR RAINBOWS was released in 2019, she has performed her work at LATITUDE FESTIVAL and THE BUSH THEATRE. After recognising a need to diversify her poetry, she began to handmake FLOATING FLORAL frames; which highlight her popular poems surrounded by hand pressed flowers. 'They have really taken off and I've even been receiving commission requests now as well, which is wonderful!'

She is passionate about Women's issues; Cairo founded Black Girls Brunch UK, a community interest company that curates' safe spaces and events for Black Womxn in the UK to 'Redefine the Room' and have a seat at their own table. 'I love Black Girls Brunch, because it's a space to truly feel seen in a world that so often others me and womxn who look like me. It's inspiring meeting so many amazing Black Womxn and being able to support their individual endeavours. I never expected it to take off as much as it has, but now we have a YouTube Channel, A dedicated Mailing List and even Patrons who support us with monthly donations. It has really become a community of which I take a lot of pride in.

Connect with Cairo through her social channels:

Black Girls Brunch IG: https://www.instagram.com/blackgirlsbrunchuk/

BGB Patreon (Support Our Work) https://www.patreon.com/BlackGirlsBrunchUK

Cairo Aibangbee IG: https://www.instagram.com/cairoaibangbee/

Michelle Sews is an emerging British independent sewing pattern label. Its founder, Michelle Anderson, is passionate about sewing and slow fashion.

Michelle's sewing journey started with a desire to see whether she could learn to make clothes that fit better than those she could find on the high street. Having worked in the corporate world of the City of London for many years, she had a day to day need for elegant, professional garments and soon came to love the fact that by sewing her own clothing, she could slowly work towards creating the workwear wardrobe of her dreams. After a number of years of blogging about sewing, Michelle released her first sewing pattern. Now, with Michelle Sews, Michelle designs contemporary takes on classic garments, and aims for each sewing pattern to be a 'wardrobe builder' – one that can be made repeatedly to build an elegant business casual wardrobe. We just love her versatile, understated designs!

Hi I'm Michelle – A Crochet Designer and the hands behind Cricket Creates. I design and create Made-to-Order personalised toys and keepsakes.

I enjoy sketching fun characters and transforming them into crochet toys. Recently I've started making Mini-mes- Small Crochet versions of people used as keepsakes, toys or decorations. I love creating these as they celebrate and showcase Individual Diversity within the crochet community.

If you have a special project you would like made, get in touch @Cricket.Creates

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones MBE, AKA The Black Farmer is a businessman, author and founder of The Black Farmer brand. He recently launched his online shop The Black Farmer Experience, which has been a long-held ambition. Here visitors can shop everything from the brand's famous gluten free Sausages; grass fed, free-range Meat and Poultry, and sustainably caught Fish, Caribbean specialities, Deli and unusual Gifts.

Background

Wilfred is, in his own words, 'a poor boy, done good'. He was born in Jamaica and then, after his parents came to the UK in the 50s as part of the Windrush generation, was raised in inner city Birmingham.

For a number of years Wilfred worked as a chef before pursuing a career in television. Unqualified and dyslexic but ambitious and persistent, he talked his way into working in television, rising to become a producer/director for the BBC. He is credited with bringing many of the top UK celebrity chefs to the small screen including Gordon Ramsay, Antony Worrall-Thompson, Brian Turner and James Martin.

In 1994 he founded a food and drink marketing agency in London which went on to run successful marketing campaigns for Loyd Grossman sauces, KETTLE Chips, Plymouth Gin, Cobra Beer and other challenger brands.

Wilfred subsequently fulfilled a lifelong ambition and bought a small farm in Devon in 2000. This inspired him to develop and launch his own food brand the now very successful The Black Farmer brand of gluten free foods.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Marketing by Plymouth University in Devon, UK in 2012.

In 2013 Wilfred nearly lost his life to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. He spent a year in hospital and in 2014 underwent a stem cell transplant. Since that time, he has suffered with Graft versus Host disease. However, his experience has given him an even greater appetite for life and supporting others.

He has published two books, the first The Black Farmer Cookbook – a journey through his life in recipes; and most recently (2018) the much acclaimed “Jeopardy – The Danger of Playing it Safe” – an inspirational read for those starting or running their own businesses.

In 2019 Wilfred set up The Hatchery, an incubator scheme for fledgling brands. The first brand to 'hatch' and hit the market has been Smorgasbord Swedish Meatballs, a resounding success and already achieving national listings in Sainsburys, Asda and Costco, and the second, The Gym Kitchen launched in January 2020 in Asda and Co-Op stores.

Wilfred was awarded an MBE for services to farming in the 2020 New Year's Honours List.