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January 19, 2024

Meet this year’s Food Business Accelerator participants

Contributed These are some of the offerings from Passionately Pasta, which is part of the 2024 Food Business Accelerator program.
By Andrew Larson

Ten Connecticut-based food entrepreneurs recently began this year’s Food Business Accelerator program, which offers one-on-one coaching, seed funding, a free voucher to use a commercial kitchen and an educational curriculum.

Now in its sixth year, the Food Business Accelerator program – a partnership program between Collab and CitySeed – kicked off on Jan. 10.

The 10 entrepreneurs who are participating were selected among nearly 40 applicants. 

The annual Food Business Accelerator program has graduated nearly 50 aspiring entrepreneurs. Of those, 85% are people of color and 61% are women. Past graduates have gone on to create successful ventures.

This year’s ventures are:

  • Brittney’s Famous Alabama Kitchen, founded by Brittney Michelle Williams. It is a soul food restaurant that is looking to expand into franchises.
  • Island Infusions Catering, founded by Damone Johnson. It is a food and event service serving the Tri-State area with menus influenced by the owner’s Jamaican-American heritage and his love for cuisine found all over the world.
  • Macy’s Mission, run by Leeze Suazo (founder) and Nicolas Mattei. It is a restaurant that reinvents classics and popular meals and items for the vegan community. 
  • K&K, founded by Swadu Kamara and Alhaji Umarr Kromah. It offers West African foods and recipes typical of the Republic of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – in New Haven.
  • Will.I.AM Wings & Catering, founded by William Person. It is a food truck that will serve a variety of home-cooked-style chicken wings and other southern dishes.
  • Zoey Cigar-Hodge is creating a dog bakery that will sell New Haven apizza-inspired pie for pets along with other baked goods.
  • Naani Kochak, founded by Homa Assadi. It will sell authentic Afghan breads that will be distributed to ethnic grocery stores and restaurants.
  • Passionately Pasta, founded by Nicholas Imbriglio. It is a small shop in Wallingford that offers homemade pasta, using local ingredients, and frequently sells out. The shop also mills its own flour.
  • Morsel Dumplings, founded by Terese Kung. It sells a variety of frozen, ready-to-cook Asian fusion dumplings.
  • Suga & Spice Me, founded by Shakeema Romero. It offers natural food products and caters to people with food sensitivities. Baked goods include muffins, cakes and tarts that can be made dairy-free, and gluten-free, with minimally processed flours and sugars.

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