A bubbly-looking Coey Jaber has a sweet tale about the power of social media. She is a highly sought-after foodpreneur behind ‘Thee Food Cartel’ a successful online food business. Coey’s dedication to creating food content and sharing with her fans across her socials is inspiring.
She looks back at it all with a heart full of gratitude and she is now an inspiration to many people. However, she has a tall tale to tell about her journey in food content creation and how it opened unexpected opportunities for her.
How Did Coey Jaber Get Into Food Content Creation?
It all started with joining a local Facebook group Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals in 2015. The group was set up to allow people to share different types of food, recipes and cooking ideas. Coey Jaber driven by her passion for cooking joined the group and followed silently for three years.
“The journey started back in 2015 when I joined the mother of all cooking groups in Kenya Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals I was so elated because I had an interest in cooking and I had finally found a group where people shared their culinary skills with recipes,” she recalls.
Kenyan food content creator Coey Jaber. Photo/Coey Jaber/Facebook
In June 2018, she decided to keep her fear at bay and make her first food post in the group and she did it. Afraid of negative energy and criticism that tags along with such platforms, the mother of two switched off her phone for a while as a coping mechanism for anticipated criticism on her first post.
Curiosity got the better part of her and she switched it on moments later to just see the response. Sadly, her first post didn’t get a lot of engagement nor did it draw criticism. She smilingly calls it the cowardice stage which she overcame with a second post days later but suffered the same fate as the first post; low engagement.
“Since then, I started posting frequently until around 2020 when I won 5k on a challenge in the group. So I was happy. I couldn’t believe that cooking food I will eat and just posting could get me 5k clean mulla, just like that,” she adds.
The Sh5,000 token fueled her desire to share more food content in the group. Posting what she prepared for breakfast, lunch and dinner motivated her to keep going and this set her sails on another course.
The Birth of Thee Food Cartel Brand
With a fresh dose of motivation, Coey Jaber started posting on her personal Facebook page. The reception by her fans was overwhelming, something she didn’t expect at first. Her fan base grew exponentially with new followers from the group and her account, and so did her cooking skills and photography skills.
A meal prepared by Coey Jaber, the proprietor of Thee Food Cartel, an online food business. Photo/Coey Jaber/Facebook
In 2022, she renamed her dormant Instagram page Thee Food Cartel and the feedback was encouraging. Coey enjoys a tidy 132K following on her Insta page filled with images of delicious and tempting meals. Her followers challenged her to create videos of her meal preparation and cooking, a big challenge at the time but she taught herself how to create and edit videos a few weeks later. She is also on TikTok ( tiktok.com/@theefoodcartel) and has a YouTube Page too.
Major brands have endorsed her as their brand ambassador due to her strong social media presence and culinary gift. As a self-taught entrepreneur, the Nairobi-bred entrepreneur admits that hard work and persistence are behind her success.
“It has been a journey of learning, hard work, pushing myself and practising patience. This far I can only be grateful to God,” Coey avers adding “and of course thank you guys for being adamant supporters and consumers of my work. I can say without a doubt that I have the best followers who exercise positivity all through.”
What Does Coey Jaber Love Most About Food Business?
Food creation excites her because there is always room to make the best out of simple ingredients and learn new things that generate income. While she is an excellent cook preparing delicious meals from simple recipes, she pats herself on the back for her baking prowess. The millennial food content creator taught herself how to bake and gradually, she is at a place where she does baking commercially.
Her first resolution after purchasing an oven was to learn how to bake, which she did initially with cupcakes, and muffins among others. With constant learning, she now bakes all types of delectable cakes. The nights she spent reading up and practising are now paying off handsomely.
A beautiful cake baked by Kenyan food content creator Coey Jaber. Photo/Coey Jaber/Facebook
What’s her secret to all this success? Passion, creativity and confidence, she opines. Moreover, slaying the procrastination dragon has helped her build an admirable business that many people only dream of.
“What I have learnt so far is that there are only two options when it comes to any success story. And those options are STARTING or STARTING. Procrastination is a cancer, it’s a killer that eats you up together with your future and success. Whatever it is, just start from where you are with what you have and everything else will fall in place along the way.”
To this day, Coey is a proponent of fearlessly pursuing things that set the soul on fire. She adds that the greatest enemy between a person’s success and failure comes from within and self-doubt is always the dream killer.
Her parting shot to aspiring online food creators and otherwise is originality, courage and humility.
“Be original, stay original. Being original sets you apart in a crowd. Creativity is like a well, once you activate it, you keep fetching and fetching. But once you start waiting to copy what someone else is doing, your creativity remains dormant hence it doesn’t produce or improve,” she concludes.
