Dharamshala, 22nd January: A Tibetan lady based in Beaverton, Oregon is beginning on an important journey to expand her small business. Kyikyi identifies as a Tibetan in exile who came to the United States from Tibet nearly 20 years ago and is now dedicated to sharing her culture and encouraging representation via food.
For many people, food is a love language, and Kyikyi is no exception. About six years ago, she began sharing her passion for food and culture at the Beaverton Night Market. She provided momos (Tibetan dumplings), Tibetan hand pies, and other delicacies. She said that this allows her to achieve her greater aspiration, which is to raise awareness about Tibetan culture.
During the pandemic, though, opportunities to sell her momos became scarce. She had been toying with the notion of packing and selling her dumplings for years. So she took the plunge and decided to try to scale up, jumping through all the difficult regulatory hoops in order to package and sell her homemade frozen dumplings and hand pies. Kyikyi described her hand pies as empanada-like. She now has a significant achievement under her belt.
She launched the first woman-owned Tibetan frozen food brand in the U.S. It took a lot of effort to achieve this feat. She added that it’s intensive, and she probably spent much of last year in the pandemic while working a full-time job with kids, doing this. She detailed numerous hours of nothing but effort, a lot of hard work, a lot of tears, and even crying in the bathroom.
Kyikyi had to put in even more time and effort because she was determined to acquire local, or at the very least American-made products, from packaging to design. The vast majority of the specialists to whom she outsourced some of the jobs were women-owned small local firms.
Locally sourced goods and services are more expensive than imported goods, but Kyikyi hopes that buyers will look past the price tag — her momos, for example, cost $25-$30 for a bag of 20 — because her dumplings are larger than most people expect. According to her, her Tibetan dumplings are perhaps 40 to 50 percent larger than the ordinary pot sticker found in the market.
It’s been less than a month since her soft launch, and she says the response has been overwhelming. Expanding Kyikyi’s business isn’t about making money for Kyikyi, who stated she has a wonderful day job. It’s all about passing down her heritage. She explained that Tibetans make up a small community worldwide, resulting in a lack of general representation.
Kyikyi intends to use cuisine to empower fellow Tibetans and immigrants, as well as to introduce the greater society to Tibetan culture. Kyikyi stated that she is currently running a one-woman performance with some assistance from her family. Her next goal is to gather client feedback, after which she hopes to hire additional people and sell her momos in grocery stores, exposing even more people to her culture.
For the time being, Kyikyi will continue to make momos and hand pies in small batches by hand. Those interested in testing them should go to her website Here.
Disclaimer: The above information is based on KGW-TV Portland’s interview with Kyikyi.
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