Behind Todo Verde’s Craveable Flavors
When Jocelyn Ramirez thinks about what motivates her as a chef and entrepreneur, food justice, strong community, and authentic flavors come to mind. However, Jocelyn’s North Star has always been the delicious dishes she grew up with on the Southeast side of Los Angeles. In 2015, those nostalgic and craveable culinary creations propelled her to start Todo Verde, a plant-forward Latine-owned food business inspired by regional, true-to-culture flavors.
Initially, Jocelyn left her career in higher education and set up Todo Verde as a food service business. She started off at local farmers markets selling superfoods, smoothies, and aguas frescas. Eventually, she started offering more savory food items and began catering, transforming the traditional dishes she grew up making alongside her abuelita into flavorful vegan meals. In 2020, Joceyln published her first cookbook, La Vida Verde, which became an instant best-seller.
That’s when Joceyln had to make a decision. She could either open a brick-and-mortar restaurant for Todo Verde, or she could grow her product line and enter the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. Ultimately, she chose the latter path for her certified woman-, minority-owned small business. Joceyln knew, however, that she couldn’t do it alone. “I needed funding to be able to produce my initial production round of inventory,” Jocelyn said. “It’s not like catering, where you pay for inventory, prepare the food, and get paid back right away. With CPG, you buy your inventory upfront and slowly chip away at it.”
In order to be successful, Jocelyn knew that she needed to find a financial partner who was willing to work with her to grow Todo Verde at a slow-and-steady pace. That’s why Jocelyn began to connect with Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) like AltCap. AltCap is a nonprofit CDFI based in Kansas City, and also serving California, that provides flexible, patient loans and capital to small businesses, social enterprises, and real-estate projects, especially those underserved by traditional banks.
It offers small business loans, micro-loans, and specialized financing (e.g. for artists, contractors, or community real-estate projects), aiming to foster economic growth, job creation, and investment in under-resourced communities. CNote supports mission-driven partners like AltCap through its Flagship Fund, generating fixed returns for investors while supporting women-owned small businesses and underserved communities across the country.
Today, Jocelyn is hard at work to secure anchor accounts that would place her Todo Verde products in regional grocery stores across the United States. She’s currently focused on markets in California, the Midwest, New England, and Texas. Additionally, Jocelyn is in conversations with larger, national grocery stores, and her goal is for one of them to be carrying her carnitas, al pastor, and tinga 20-minute meal packets by the end of the year.
When Jocelyn meets prospective wholesale buyers, “the gatekeepers of who decide what gets space on the shelf,” she talks about how, compared to most other taco seasonings, Todo Verde’s plant-based products have two times the flavor and two times the spices. She also can boast that her meal packets, which are free of dairy, gluten, and fillers, are a Specialty Food Association award-winner. Additionally, unlike large, multinational food companies, Todo Verde’s product line has a face: Jocelyn’s. In addition to being an entrepreneur, she also sits on Food Forward’s culinary advisory board and Los Angeles’ Food Policy Council, and she’s a regular recipe contributor to The New York Times. “I’m looking to make connections through my flavors,” said Jocelyn. “I’m here to do demos, to do classes, and to be a bit more involved. I’m committed to creating more accessibility to true-to-culture products and recipes for my community.”
