Fetlework Tefferi

Owner/General Manager, Café Colucci, Brundo Market; Oakland, CA

Fetlework Tefferi is owner/general manager at Café Colucci and Brundo Organic Flavors of Ethiopia. She started Brundo International in 2009 in the central Ethiopian town of Modjo. The nearly all-female-run spice company employs 29 women in Ethiopia, who grind spices grown by local farmers and mix them into various blends. She also helps to foot the costs of uniforms and a lunch program at the nearby school, which their children attend. She moved to the United States as a teenager when the revolution in Ethopia began, with five small bags filled with spices that her mother gave her as she left. After college Fetlework went into banking and relocated to San Francisco. Two of her friends were opening a restaurant and asked for her help. She started doing a little cooking at the café, peppering Ethiopian dishes onto the Italian menu. Ethiopians who ventured in loved her kitfo, a spiced steak tartare. Café Colucci is now a second home to many Ethiopians in the Bay Area. (Oakland, CA) @EthiopianSpices