Beyonce Gives $10,000 Grant to Black-Owned Vegan Tennessee Bakery

Vegan Tennessee bakery The Pink Bakery recently received a $10,000 grant from Beyonce's BeyGood Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund, created by the star's nonprofit in partnership with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The goal of the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund is to help Black-owned small business owners who have suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nubian Simmons, founder of The Pink Bakery spoke about the grant, saying, “I’m still on a high from the announcement and I cannot believe that my company is sitting on Beyonce’s website right now with the other recipients from Round 2.”

Simmons founded The Pink Bakery in 2014 which specialized in custom baking orders, but COVID-19 affected the business severely, with Simmons remarking that it “almost destroyed us completely”. The bakery’s aim is to provide its community with desserts that do not contain the top eight allergens: Milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soy.

To accommodate the pandemic no contact rules, the bakery created and began to sell at-home baking mixes. “Although the baked goods accounted for 75 percent of our business, we now had to put all of our efforts into the super easy baking mixes that we used to bake for everyone. The mixes actually turned out to be the perfect solution. We didn’t have to worry about spoilage or damage to the mixes. We were also able to ship them nationwide via the USPS and provide contactless delivery to our customers’ homes," explained Simmons.

The Pink Bakery is currently offering No Frownie Brownies Mix and Mama’s Favorite Chocolate Mix. They are also planning to launch new products at the end of November just in time for the holidays, including The Lauren White Cake Mix, Gimme That Flour Mix, Good AF Chocolate Frosting, and White Sweetness Frosting.