The proof is in the concept

Jaime Randle knows good food.

Just ask the thousands of New Yorkers savouring bites of her Jamaican-inspired, artisanal Coco Bred-branded eats at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and food festivals across the Empire State.

On order are seasoned-to-perfection meat and vegan options crafted with a decidedly island flavour. Filled in between the diagonally cut dough pockets are menu items such as veggie rundown, Jamaican chopped cheese, Passa Passa pork, goat, Jamaican dip, and jerk bird.

Coco Bred’s offerings, which have the American palate in a tizzy, are anything but plain. Think slow-cooked oxtail topped with a scallion-ginger sauce and pickled Scotch bonnet. How about smoky jerked chicken with pickled pineapples, a ginger-carrot slaw, drizzled with a sorrel barbecue sauce? Or coconut curry chickpeas and a veggie medley with a callaloo chimichurri and a plantain crunch?

For the Big Apple-raised Randle, a marketing executive and writer-turned-entrepreneur, launching Coco Bred in the summer of 2023 came to be after a slow burn of conceptual ideas she had mused on for some time.

“I was living in Italy and got the idea to take coco bread and fill it with our traditional staples like jerk chicken, oxtail, curry goat, and make it different with toppings, but I knew that it wouldn’t work in Italy. Italians like Italian food, and tourists are coming to Italy because they want to eat Italian food,” recalled Randle, who at the time was resident in Europe with her late pharmaceuticals director hubby Christopher Venn and their newborn daughter. “I knew it wouldn’t work there. I moved to England, where I thought it probably could work, but I didn’t really have it in me. The zest for it wasn’t really there. I thought I needed to wait to be back in New York to do something like this.”

During her time in Europe, between Paris and Rome, the intrepid Randle first dipped her toes into culinary waters and hosted a brunch club. “It was an American-style brunch with international influences that Christopher and I would have on Sundays in our apartment. It was a three-course menu with cocktail pairings. People made reservations and prepaid for their seats. On average, there were between 10 to 25 people.”

“The reception was really good. It was a pretty self-selecting crowd of people who were adventurous when it came to food,” she reflected on the curated weekly event she had coined, R Brunch Club. “I would put in Jamaican influences, or if we had travelled to Spain or Italy, I’d incorporate influences from those recent travels or anything that I was craving.”

Born to Jamaican parents and insurance agency owners Michelle and Paul Randle, the family migrated to the States in 1986 with a then two-month-old Jaime.

Coming from a Caribbean household informed the cuisine choice she wanted to focus on developing a business brand identity for. With Coco Bred, Randle explained to Food, “I sought to infuse my Caribbean heritage because that’s who and what I am. That’s all I know. That’s the food I love. That’s the people that I love. That’s the land I love. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. I also believe that authenticity and integrity shine through everything you do.”

The University of Connecticut alum who read for a bachelor’s degree in psychology returned to America after a seven-year jaunt around Europe. She departed Amsterdam, where she was working as an au pair and a research assistant, in 2021.

Back in New York, with her little one Ruby in tow, Randle reveals that before deciding to go full-throttle with Coco Bred, she was employed as a senior editor and writer for a digital asset investment firm, and worked too, as a copywriter for a major retailer.

Food festivals would be the litmus test for her debut culinary undertaking. The first was the Norwalk International Cultural Exchange Festival in Connecticut.

Becoming a vendor at these festivals, according to the then upstart, “really helped to build out Coco Bred because I was able to start pretty bare bones without dumping too much capital into it like a brick and mortar or a food truck. It still was expensive to start, but it was the best way to be able to step out and say, ‘This is my proof-of-concept year’”.

“I was able to see if people liked it, if I liked it, and if it was a good concept,” she continued, “It was a great place to get my feet wet, learn, grow, and slowly develop. Also, it’s an amazing place that has a large foot traffic that you typically couldn’t garner on your own. Had I just opened a brick-and-mortar, I’d have to be really hustling hard to make sure I could get people in the door, whereas at these food festivals and markets, people are going specifically to buy food.”

Randle went on to showcase her fresh-from-the-oven coco bread at other seasonal festivals, including Smorgasburg, Atlantic Antic, and Vegandale across the city. Word-of-mouth was fantastic, and the traction even better.

The proverbial wind was most definitely in Randle’s sails. “2024 was a pretty big year for us, and a lot of great things happened before we even hit our year milestone. We were invited to have a kiosk at the Barclays Center during the Brooklyn Nets season, and then they invited us back for the New York Liberty season because we did so well.”

The just-concluded Christmas season was another win for Coco Bred as Randle dropped anchor at the massively popular Union Square Holiday Market in Manhattan.

Among more than 150 carefully curated vendors, her inventive bites resonated with the teeming crowd of curious buyers to whet their appetites. She went viral on TikTok, amassing over a million views that saw her recount what her financial investment in securing space at the holiday event entailed.

“The experience was great. It’s incredibly expensive to get in. It’s about US$23,000 just for the bare [bones] space,” the self-taught cook explained of the festival that this year ran from November 13 to December 24. “Then you have to build everything out, bring in your equipment, and all of that. But the exposure was excellent. We had that pretty viral video moment, which garnered a lot of attention and a lot of customers who became repeat customers. And then we had a CNBC article come out of it. It’s a really competitive market to get into, so we were really, really proud.”

Powered down for the winter with her 10-year-old and partner of five years, Randle has no plans for Coco Bred to go into hibernation in the months ahead.

“The plan for 2026 is to continue to refine our operations and tighten up margins. I want to be really smart and tight financially before going on to bigger and better things,” she divulged to Food. “I would love to have a brick and mortar, but I would like to find a [business] partner first who has deep experience in the quick service restaurant space and who has experience scaling and growing something like this to potentially have a couple of locations. Also, I’m starting research and development for consumer packaged goods. I have some really fantastic ideas for a line, but I’m not ready to share just yet.”

What she is willing to spill details on is her last trip home to The Rock last July and her fave food destinations.

Topping the list is “a curry goat patty from Devon House. Absolutely needed and I love it. The second would be Hellshire Beach. I always go to Bev and Sons. I always want to try other places because I’m sure that they are delicious, but when you find something good, you kind of just keep going. So I love to get the fried fish and lobster, especially their garlic buttered lobster. It is so delicious with bammy and festivals. I also love Outer Road Krabby. They’re a kind of pop-up situation. I first found them on the side of the road, driving from Falmouth toward Montego Bay.”

The avowed Jamaican foodie also cops to having a yearning for new experiences.

“I always love to stop at little roadside spots and try different things. And also the fruit. I always stop to get fresh fruit. I love jackfruit, and June plum is my absolute number one. I could live on Jamaican fruit and nothing else,” she joyfully admitted.

She is basking in downtime for the moment. A stacked work schedule is already lined with her Barclays Center food concourse gig for the National Basketball Association season from February to April, then the Women’s National Basketball Association season from May to September. Then there is booked time to return to the Smorgasburg festival, which kicks off in April with iterations at Prospect Park, Williamsburg, and the World Trade Center.

“I was grateful for the Union Square Market, but I’m really happy to have this time of rest. And now I have a couple of months where I can chill out. There’s not as many events that happen during the winter, especially these months. So I can rest, reflect, and plan for the year ahead because I don’t typically have much time to think and spend time with my daughter.”

Randle may have achieved success in a mushrooming business, but for her, family remains her foundation of what truly matters.

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com