Meet My Mama: the startup turning home cooks into high-end entrepreneurs

Published on 10/04/2026 - 15:00 GMT+2

“These are cassava and okra mini-quiches with mango curry sauce. And implicit here, mafé-marinated chickenhearted skewers.” In her kitchen, acceptable wrong the Cité Fertile, a trendy “third place” connected the outskirts of Paris, Marie-Clarisse lays retired a tray of elegant bites destined for a prestigious lawsuit owed that evening successful the French capital.

“I learned French culinary techniques to showcase ingredients from backmost home,” she says. “It’s a span betwixt Congo and France.”

That span is besides personal. Marie-Clarisse and her household fled struggle successful Congo-Brazzaville successful the precocious 1990s to question refuge successful France. Today, she is some cook and entrepreneur, with her ain catering business, “Maison Kolia.”

In different of the site’s kitchens, Milena prepares a refined nikkei ceviche. Born successful France to Peruvian parents, she erstwhile worked arsenic a fiscal auditor earlier trading spreadsheets for cooking utensils. “I wanted to marque Peruvian cuisine much wide known.” explains the chef, who’s besides created her ain catering venture, “Wankas”.

Milena and Marie-Clarisse are conscionable 2 of galore women rewriting their stories done Meet My Mama, a fast-growing foodtech startup with a societal mission.

Founded astir 8 years agone by Loubna Ksibi, Donia Souad Amamra and Youssef Oudahman, the institution was built connected a elemental idea: alteration overlooked culinary endowment into thriving businesses.

“The thought stems from our ain stories,” says Oudahman. “We grew up astir women with unthinkable skills who didn’t recognize they could crook them into careers”, helium explains. “In the gastronomy business, 80 to 90% of enactment roles are inactive held by men. We don’t conscionable privation to marque country for these women, we privation them successful premium position”.

The company’s ‘Mama Academy’ trains participants successful some culinary skills and concern fundamentals. “It’s not conscionable economical inclusion,” says Ksibi. “We wanted these women to go autarkic entrepreneurs, and to shine.”

So far, astir 80 women person launched their ain catering businesses done the platform, supplying the precise events the institution secures.

“We springiness chefs the powerfulness to person power,” says Amamra. “And they’ll walk that connected to their families and communities. So the indirect interaction is huge.”

And the look is working. With much than 600 events a year, Meet My Mama serves large corporations and planetary gatherings and is scaling up, eyeing planetary growth.

For Loubna Ksibi, the exemplary is self-reinforcing: “The much concern we do, the much interaction we create. And the much interaction we create, the much concern follows”, she reflects. “We're present among the starring caterers successful Paris. I don't cognize however overmuch further we'll go. But we've achieved fantastic things together. And we’ll proceed to bash so.”