Like many Jamaicans, Sabrina McDonald knows a lot of people living with lifestyle diseases diabetes and hypertension. Her own grandparents were affected by the conditions, and it was those memories that prompted the young entrepreneur to create a low-sodium Jamaican seasoning brand in Kelowna, British Columbia in Canada.

McDonald, 27, said when she started manufacturing the City Eats seasonings last year, she could not ignore the health issues that plagued her family and the black community.

“You live in the Caribbean and a lot of us are plagued by diabetes and high blood pressure. This is an issue and lifestyle illness that largely affects our community and I want to provide products that enrich the lives of my customers and help make a change in how we take care of ourselves and our health and wellness…,” McDonald told Observer Online.

“I’ve been working really hard to educate my audience about reading nutrient fact labels, reading product ingredients to help them make sound decisions on what they are putting into their bodies. I think this is something we don’t bother to do. They say if you want to hide something from a black man just put it in a book or put it in writing because we don’t read,” she added.

McDonald’s cooking background stretches as far back to her childhood in Spice Grove, St Elizabeth where she was often tasked with tending to her younger siblings as her father worked on the family farm and her mother worked as a shopkeeper and market vendor. The Hampton School for Girls alumni aspired to become a financial advisor and journeyed to Canada to study business at Okanagan College in 2016. After earning her degree, she started working at a bank.

To connect with family, the young entrepreneur said she did what she knew best – cook. So, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she would share meal prep videos on Facebook and WhatsApp. But it was her friend’s encouragement that propelled her to start a cooking business.

She later resigned from her 9-to-5 in banking and finance, and spent her entire savings of CAD$20,000 to rent a commercial kitchen to prepare meals to be sold on Uber Eats. She said after a while, she found it almost impossible to sustain the food truck, forcing her to close down the business. She fell into bouts of depression.

While being ashamed of her “failure”, McDonald started connecting more with God. During a church service, she said God placed in her heart the idea for City Eats seasoning.

In April 2022, she carried the first batch of seasonings to be tested at the farmers market, garnering positive feedback.

In August, City Eats launched six signature blends including all-purpose, fish, chicken, jerk dry, meat, and seafood seasonings with ingredients sourced from Jamaica. This year, curry powder and chicken dry seasonings were introduced to the brand. The products are manufactured in Kelowna and shipped to customers across Canada and the United States.

Today, she touts City Eats as the “biggest authentic Jamaican seasoning brand in Canada” and recently generated a buzz on social media with her bold proclamation, earning plaudits from the likes of Olympic legend Usain Bolt and dancehall star Konshens.

Looking back at her journey, McDonald said she learned she did not fail at life, but it was just God writing her story.

“Now, when I look at everything that is happening in my life, I believe that purpose is engrained; it’s something that you’ve been doing your entire life but you probably don’t see it until it starts to unfold and manifest in your life…,” she said.

“When you look back on things that happened in my life, I said it’s not failure at my first business; it was just God writing my story so that I could have this story to tell everyone. It wasn’t a failure and because I was blindsided too, the enemy used fear to try to kill my dreams and my mom said to me don’t be afraid it will all work out…,” she continued.

As such, she is advising aspiring entrepreneurs to “never let fear cripple you.”

“Don’t start a business without God. After God, this should be one of the first things you should do. Sometimes we have a brilliant idea and we say we’re not ready for it because of what people will think…But just start because it is going to evolve,” she noted.

She intends to launch a foundation to assist international students in Canada through scholarships while aiming to give back to the bread basket parish.

“I am so glad that my voice is being heard because I want to create a social impact and help people. In my business, something that I would be doing is to launch a foundation where I can help international students who come to Canada and do not have the support that they need. I got deregistered from classes a lot because tuition was three times that of domestic students and I didn’t have the money to pay. Sometimes I couldn’t afford groceries and I just want to be that support for them,” McDonald told Observer Online.