Dessert is the medium Shafna Shamsuddin uses to tell her story. The creator of a cardamom-infused ice cream company, Elaka Treats, finds inspiration in childhood Indian traditions, but says her story begins at an American store.
“My story started at Williams-Sonoma,” Shamsuddin says. Born and raised in the United Arab Emirates by Indian immigrant parents, Shamsuddin came to the U.S. to attend Purdue University. She later earned a degree at UNC Charlotte after being matched with her husband and relocating to Gastonia.
As she threw herself into projects, “plumbing, electrical, carpentry — I’ve done all kinds of stuff,” Shamsuddin found herself wandering through the glimmering displays at a Williams-Sonoma kitchenware store. A Cuisinart ice cream maker caught her eye.
That small mixer has since been retired, but it got Shamsuddin’s wheels churning. An Indian tradition she learned from her mother is that, when entertaining, everything is made from scratch to celebrate your guests’ presence at the table.
She began testing with friends the confections she made with her ice cream maker. Her dishes featured the exotic flavor of cardamom, a warm, aromatic ginger known for its peppery, piney palate.
“Everyone loved it,” she says. Watching others savor her creations confirmed what she had suspected — she was onto something.
In 2013, Shamsuddin and her husband moved to Greensboro. A desire to make her confections into something bigger nagged at her, but she had no idea how to start.
As luck would have it, her trainer at a Greensboro gym connected her with another client, Lindsay Bisbee, who had started the homemade pickle brand Kyōōkz. Bisbee introduced Shamsuddin to the Piedmont Food Processing Center business incubator in Hillsborough, which offers commercial kitchen space and support for entrepreneurs.
Shamsuddin also picked up confidence at the gym. With a newfound belief in herself, she began production in 2019 at the commercial kitchen space, while learning how to launch a business with help from Executive Director L. Eric Hallman.
Elaka is what people in the Indian state of Kerala call cardamom. She was set to launch Elaka Treats at Winston-Salem’s annual RiverRun International Film Festival in 2020.
“And then COVID hit, cancels the [festival], cancels my (state) inspection,” she says,
“and I panicked.”
While inspections were on pause, Shamsuddin says, “I found out that if I can convince the Department of Agriculture that I am going to do everything per code and my product is safe to consume, then they will give me a letter that says . . . it is OK for us to be in business.” She received the approval letter and, like many businesses in 2020, made a
new plan.
Shamsuddin started peddling her pints at farmers markets from Raleigh to Charlotte. Farmers markets opened doors, allowing Shamsuddin to adopt a business-to-business model. At the Chapel Hill Farmers Market, Vimala Rajendran, owner of Vimala’s Curryblossom Café, introduced herself. Soon after, Shamsuddin had her first wholesale account. She now has 12.
“It’s been a slow build,” she says, but the pace has given her room to expand her part-time teams. She’s relocated her operation to the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship in Greensboro, where she rents an office and a warehouse-style storage space, and utilizes its shared-use kitchen.
Her menu now includes a half-dozen collaborations with local brands. She’s added a variety of cream-based flavors as well as vegan options and says that every flavor has its own story. Z’s lemonade, a flavor her son requested on his fifth birthday, is popular among the kiddos.
Shamsuddin strives to get her products on grocery store shelves. She’d also like to see self-serving freezers in cultural spaces.
“Initially, Elaka was about me. It was about telling my story,” she adds “Over the past six years, it’s grown into something else. It’s about community, belonging “and how, through food, you can see how we’re all connected.” ■
Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine in Greensboro, where this story first appeared.
