After the initial years spent in Harlow and having two children in the English town outside London there was a thought process that it was a time for change. A magical moment on a regular visit to north Wales during a long walk to Porthmadog from Pentrefelin emphasized the fact.
London born Nigerian Maggie Ogunbanwo explains,”During the walk I started crying for no reason. My faith is strong and I asked God what is the matter?
A voice told me” I want you to pray for my people here” My thoughts were why? but I didn’t argue”
“I called my friend in Zimbabwe and she told me it was what I had been directed to do and we prayed over the phone. I parked the thoughts until my husband Olufemi Ogunbanwo told me we were moving to north Wales after 18 years in England. I was so stressed about the situation I lost my hair then remembered the epiphany and suddenly felt prepared”.
Maggie explains,”The move wasn’t easy as our first concern was the education of our children and finding the right schools. We started looking around Snowdonia and the stipulation was that both junior and senior schools had to be within walking distance. We found houses but they all fell through for one reason or another until, we think, one property found us. In an 88% welsh speaking community, one of the most predominately welsh speaking areas in Wales, and with no money, we arrived to start a ministry in a damp, old pub The Red Lion in Penygroes a small village south of Caernarfon”.
Now the whole family are welsh speakers.
“ I started a pop up restaurant showcasing Africa and my husband founded a church but in 2015 the restaurant was closed and Maggie decided just to concentrate on the food and created a hot sauce that became very popular and we started bottling the product. In 2016 at the Caernarfon Food Festival – Gwyl Fwyd –a hot pepper sauce was launched and sold out.
With this boost of confidence in her food Maggie started Maggie’s Exotic Foods with the help of Business Wales, and the name Maggie’s African Twist from a Bangor University student. There were 15 plus sauces and spice rub products hitting the food market.
It was an upward curve of success until March 2020 and Covid19 hit everybody so hard. She started making cooking videos but was still worried about how the business was going to survive.
Then out of something so evil the world opened up for the now named Maggie’s An African Twist to Your Everyday Dish
At the beginning of the pandemic Maggie was confronted by a large white swastika symbol, widely recognized for its appropriation by the German Nazi Party painted on her bright red garage doors. An obvious attack on her and her family but Wales way of supporting her was for the Penygroes community getting together to paint over the symbol.
It also gave her national publicity with the positive reaction of 12 online orders taken in the first hour then 100 during the next hour and within the next two days there were more orders than the whole of the previous year.
Maggie remembers,”It happened during the height of Black Lives Matter and there were events in Maes Caernarfon. It could have been a negative reaction to that but something that was so bad created an awareness of us and made the community stronger against who ever did it. A definite positive from what was an upsetting negative”.
Since that day Maggie has become a member of the Food and Drink Independent Board (the only Black person on the board) and she has also had a book Melting Pot published with 15 ethnic minority recipes from around the world. A book that won a Gourmand World Cook Book Award and also winning Best in the World Award in the migrant category. A first in Wales.
She explains,” It is good to be involved helping black and ethnic minorities with small start up businesses. That is my strength. I feel I can be a roll model as someone that has achieved this and I can give a perspective they don’t have. I can also show the diversity of small business”.
Because of this success and also the personality of Maggie she has had many media opportunities and has been a regular on Radio Wales and seen on TV.
But for the action and painted sign on a garage door who knows what would have happened. I can say it may have taken just a little while longer but Maggie’s An African Twist to Your Everyday Dish would still have made your table.
And as for the church in the now not so damp old pub in Penygroes ..it still continues but that’s another story.
