Metropolitan Museum of Art showcasing local female-owned artisan Red Fox Spices
NEW YORK -- A local female-owned small business is getting a bit of spotlight at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The opportunity not only helps its objective of sharing a generational tradition, but also helping sustainability practices.
Tigist Kelkay and her family are keeping their spot in The MET Store nice and neat. They said they couldn't believe when they got the call, that the museum was interested in displaying their product in its gift shop.
"We were so thrilled and honored," Kelkay said.
The Africa and Byzantium exhibition is one of the museum's most recent. The compelling artwork reflects the lives and times of people from the fifth to 15th century, and connections between North and East Africa and the Byzantine World.
"A lot of the work has never been published or photographed and so it's such a great opportunity," said Dr. Andrea Myers Achi, curator of Byzantine Art.
It took years and dozens of scholars to curate the display. And Red Fox Spices, a local artisan with Ethiopian roots, is one of the products visitors get to see in the gift shop if interested in walking away with tangible memories. In addition to education, another mission of the MET is supporting local businesses.
"With Red Fox it's that, um, preserving ancestral heritage through the power of food. That really resonated with us through that kind of history and looking at authentic spice blends and generations," said Stephen Mannello, of The MET Store retail and licensing.
"Traditionally, we make sauces with it. It's vegan, gluten free, all of them," Kelkay said.
Sustainability lies at the core of the small business. Kelkay's mother sources spices from farmers in Ethiopia that practice sustainable farming. Then everything shipped to New Jersey, where it is packaged and sold from their small workspace.
"The recipes for spice blends are recipes used by my grandmother. So my mom learned to blend this stuff for recipes and she's using that original recipe to produce all the recipes for red fox," Kelkay said.
With a mission of preserving ancestral wisdom through the power of food, they also keep the Ethiopian red fox -- an endangered species and the inspiration for the company's name -- at top of mind.
"The red fox is a very tight family pod and it's led by the female," Kelkay said.
This is all full circle for the Red Fox Spices family. Being in The MET Store, honoring African heritage and culture. And also being able to give back to the African Wildlife Foundation, where a part of its mission is saving red foxes from extinction.