‘It legitimizes us’: the minority businesses still fighting for recognition

Since the 1970s, many minority business owners have been able to certify their businesses through organizations like the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) or the Small Business Administration (SBA). Until last July, one group of business owners was noticeably absent from the sea of certification options – those of Mena (Middle East and north Africa) heritage.

Recognition as a minority business has its advantages. In the consumer goods sector, certified businesses let customers know who is making their simmer sauces or importing their coffee beans. But more crucially, especially for scrappy emerging brands, certifications can reduce the cost of doing business through diversity programs found in supermarkets and chains like Kroger or Target. Some Mena businesspeople say they feel the lack of recognition.

“I tried to apply to some of the more established ‘minority certifying agencies’ and they told me that I was out of luck,” says Alexander Harik, the co-founder, along his mom, Lorraine George-Harik, of Zesty Z, a pita chip company based in Brooklyn, New York.

Although Harik was born in the US, his lineage is 100% Lebanese, yet he recounts being told: “You’re Caucasian. We don’t recognize that as a minority.” Harik notes that he doesn’t feel white. “I’ve had people say very racist and discriminatory things towards me,” he says.

“Our experience is definitely different,” he says of fellow Mena business owners, compared with white or Caucasian business owners who might be of European heritage.

Harik is one of two dozen business owners of Mena heritage who are now certified through the nascent ADC Business Council’s minority certification program launched by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in July 2023.

Yassin Sibai, born in Syria, also didn’t qualify for a minority certification prior to the ADC’s new program. Sibai is the co-founder of Afia, a frozen food company based in Austin, Texas, alongside his wife Farrah Moussallati Sibai. Afia makes falafel and kibbeh based on Syrian family recipes, which sell at supermarkets across the US. When Sibai had previously applied to various organizations to be certified, there was either no Mena box to check, or if he wrote “Middle Eastern” on a blank line option, he got rejected over and over. Sibai also tried a self-certifying option through the SBA website that he had to print out himself. But approaching supermarket buyers with printouts in hand was often met with confusion – some buyers accepted it, others did not. “Mena was a much-needed certification that legitimizes us with the retailers,” says Sibai.

Brothers Mansour and Karim Arem tried explaining to the NMSDC that their Tunisian-rooted food company Zwïta, based in Houston, Texas, is a minority-owned brand. They were rejected. “Anybody from north Africa or the Middle East is just considered white under the categories that they had,” says Karim. “That was a bit frustrating.” Zwïta, known for its harissas and shakshukas, is now Mena-certified through the ADC.

While it’s not necessary for minority-owned businesses in the US that sell goods or services to be certified (many aren’t), for small, independent CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands, certification can reduce the cost of doing business significantly – sometimes by thousands of dollars. Several supermarket chains charge a fee for products sold on their shelves and some will reduce or waive those fees for certified businesses as part of their diversity efforts.

Raffi Vartanian is the co-founder of Ziba, a company that sells nuts and dried fruits from Afghanistan and employs Afghan women. The colorful Ziba pouches sell at chains like Erewhon and Ralph’s in California, and smaller shops like the Goods Mart in New York City. Shelving fees are “onerous” for small brands, says Vartanian: “You’re competing against huge conglomerates that can afford the shelf space.”

In addition to possibly reducing or eliminating fees, some supermarkets allocate funds for promotions during Black history or Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage months. “April is a newly recognized Mena heritage month,” says Isabella “Bella” Hughes of Better Sour, a gummy candy brand. Better Sour features flavors that reflect Hughes and co-founder Semira Nikou’s Iranian American upbringings in Hawaii, like tangy pomegranate, apricot and plum. “So even if [stores aren’t] scaling the slotting fees,” says Hughes, “at least they’re highlighting us.”

Perks offered by supermarkets are not just altruistic overtures to CPG companies – they also benefit consumers, especially members of gen Z, who tend to like global flavors and foods more than previous generations and purchase accordingly.

So far, approximately two dozen Mena-owned brands have been certified through the ADC program during this early soft launch phase. Many more such as Yaza Labneh, a new tangy Lebanese-style labneh sold in Whole Foods, are in the pipeline.

Abed Ayoub, the executive director of the ADC who spearheaded its Mena certification program, is preparing for the next phase: tapping into the 25,000 business owners in the community, from construction and beauty service providers to lawyers and restaurateurs. Ayoub began exploring Arab or Mena certification as far back as 2009. After a few dead ends, starts and stops, he was re-energized during the pandemic as he saw vast numbers of entrepreneurs launch new businesses, coupled with Zesty Z’s Harik reaching out and sharing his attempt at certification.

Constance Jones, the NMSDC’s senior director of certification, notes that the council launched in the early 1970s. “At that time,” says Jones, Mena business owners “did not consider themselves to be minority, therefore we did not certify them as minority”.

Jones concedes that anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination followed after 9/11. “That wasn’t why NMSDC was created,” states Jones. “It wasn’t created to start adopting communities that had just now started to be discriminated [against]. It was always focused on the historical discrimination that happened in the United States for those populations that had been here.”

The subject of expanding the definition of minorities to include Mena ethnicities has come up regularly at the NMSDC, Jones says. A strategy committee is slated to look at expanding the council’s definition in 2025 – not exactly a pressing matter.

Parsing out who is considered eligible for a minority certification, and who is not, can get ridiculous verging on creepy – especially for regions with a history of migration and large immigrant populations. Is it based on DNA? Family tree? Appearance? Skin hue? Country of origin? The definitions for Hispanic, for example, vary among certifying organizations. For the NMSDC, certification requires at least one grandparent to be of a race that’s been discriminated against in the US.

So far, Ayoub says the ADC criteria for Mena certification includes examining passports, where applicants were born and family trees. “As long as we have a way to prove that connection,” states Ayoub. So far, they’ve had “easy cases”, according to Ayoub, and they’re trying to avoid scenarios in which there is need to determine if someone is “Middle East enough”. He adds: “It’s in the very early stages; we are taking it case by case.”

The new Mena certification is fairly unknown so there hasn’t been a chance for any of the activists looking to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to slam it as unfair to other ethnic groups. “We know it’s coming,” says Ayoub. “A lot of people have made DEI the boogeyman at this point.”

Hughes, an investor who is on her third CPG company, says DEI initiatives are simply addressing past exclusions of minority groups. “On the back of our packaging, we say we’re Iranian American founders from Hawaii. When we were little girls in the late 80s, early 90s, there was virtually zero representation,” she adds.

“Where does capital go? Who has access to capital?” asks Hughes rhetorically. “I mean, we do know.” She answers: “Women [founders, solely] get 2% of all venture capital, period. Mena [founders]: 0.7%,” referring to a March 2024 Carta report that polled those who identify as Middle Eastern/Arab.

The Mena certification became official three months prior to Hamas’s attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent retaliation, which has caused political and cultural reverberations around the globe. Israel is a Mena country, so will Israeli-owned businesses be eligible for Mena certification through the ADC? “What I say is, have them apply,” says Ayoub, “and we’ll go through the process.” It’s early days, but so far, no Israeli-owned businesses have applied for Mena certification.

“We don’t discuss politics,” says Ayoub of Mena businesses that have applied for certification, which he says is all about economic empowerment. “We are strictly looking at a set of standards they have to meet to get the certification.”

While some Mena-certified business owners have one-on-one discussions about Gaza and Israel, they believe politics should be left out of the official process. “This is non-religious, not nationalistic” says Zesty Z’s Harik about the certification. “This is about making money.”

“It’s a broad group of cultures, races, ethnicities, religions,” says Hughes of the Mena region. “So for us, the mission is really as narrow as: let’s raise awareness. Let’s make sure in this industry we have proper representation. It’s nothing related to the politics at play.” All Mena religions, ethnicities and races are welcome to apply.

The ADC’s Mena certification information will eventually move to the Arab American Employee Resource Group website. “We want to separate the policy and politics from the business,” says Ayoub, as the ADC advocates for Arab civil rights in the US. “I don’t want a company, whether it’s Microsoft, to have to even think twice about teaming up with our organization because they disagree with our position.”

There will be a Mena box to check on the next 2030 census for the first time, which Ayoub thinks will dovetail with wider-spread acceptance of the Mena business certification; eventually Mena-certified business owners should be eligible to bid on local and federal contracts, like other minority business enterprises.

It remains to be seen if supermarkets will accept a Mena certification. Stores choose if they want diversity programs and how they should be run; there is no regulatory requirement. “Being Mena-certified is one thing,” says Sibai. “The retailers acknowledging it and accepting it as part of their diversity portfolio or education is a whole completely different kind of journey that we have to go through.”

Harik thinks the new Mena certification is all about the spirit of entrepreneurship. “Opportunities were closed from us, so we got scrappy and intelligent and we just did our own thing. And it’s working.”