Established February 2015 as an agro-processing and catering business, Tura Homemade is owned and operated by husband and wife team Adrian and Avisha. We offer healthy, delicious homemade take-away food along with a seasonal selection of local marmalades, jams, pickles, sauces and other items. Using permaculture and regenerative agricultural techniques, we grow as much as we can for use in our products.
Tura Homemade began as a dream in a basement in Mt. Irvine back in 2014. Processing out of a studio apartment kitchen, our very first product was Lemon Marmalade made from excess lemons in the backyard. With encouragement from friends and family, we started marketing our marmalade to anyone willing to taste it and gained our first commercial customer by the end of the year. This allowed us to develop more products and by early 2015 we were vending at a start-up market at the Shade Nightclub.
The response from the public was great and Tura Homemade became a registered business in February 2015. We continued our monthly market stall until later that year when we decided to expand to selling weekly. This was generously facilitated by the Golden Grove Meat Shop who allowed us to sell our wares at their location for two days a week. A small folding table was set up under a deck umbrella attached to the back of our open car beneath a magnificent Samaan tree and this served as our makeshift stall. It was at this location that we were able to upgrade to a tent which allowed us to stay open or at least keep ourselves and our goods dry when it rained.
Eventually, our inventory got so large that we could no longer pack everything into the car so we decided to move the business closer to home so that we could restock during business hours. This also allowed us to do prepared foods for sale more easily. So in late 2016, Tura Homemade became a weekly pop-up stall under our white tent at the end of a street in Mt. Irvine.
In 2018 we were forced to move and luckily we found a cute little location very close to the commercial hub of Crown Point with a beautiful garden. This is still our current location where we operate every Friday and Saturday.
Products
With humble beginnings of just one product, Tura Homemade has grown to now include countless items that change weekly. Our jarred products contain more fruit and less sugar and are preserved naturally without the use of chemical preservatives. We have a range of Kombucha flavours as well as the classic Mauby. Dried herbs, healthful body oils, soaps as well as our all important Seaweed Neem Fertilizer & Pest Repellent are also on offer. We have recently added a weekly selection of take-away prepared food items meant to be tasty, healthy, affordable and easy to eat.
Permaculture, Regenerative Agriculture and Sustainability
From that one lemon tree, we started tending and growing more and more in order to expand our product offering and since we wanted to produce healthy items, we developed agricultural techniques to grow produce without the use of chemicals. In 2016 we made a call for anyone with land who would be interested in allowing us to practice this style of agriculture and were lucky to be afforded access to a valley in Arnos Vale where we still farm today. Although mature trees existed on the property, production was low and revitalization was necessary. We got to work and after over three years not only has production increased but produce and soil quality are both showing great improvements. A lot of our agricultural activities are guided by the concepts of Permaculture (the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient) and Regenerative Agriculture (a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services) supported by experiments conducted in the field.
Social Engagement
Another environmentally conscious decision made since our inception and which we continue to this day is sustainable packaging. Jarred products, oils and drinks come packaged in glass. We offer rebates for returned jars, discounts on refills for oils and you can return drink bottles to be reused or recycled. Our prepared foods come in paper packaging and more recently in compostable take-away containers.
It is important to us that while we grow and learn, we give back to the community around us. As such, we have gotten involved in various outreach activities over the years. These include a free lecture at the Scarborough Library on Herbal Medicines, a free presentation to the Tobago Agricultural Society entitled “The use of Red Sargassum Seaweed in Agriculture” as well as a free veterinary clinic for neighbourhood animals in collaboration with a local veterinarian.
From the early days of Tura Homemade we also wrote articles for a free local publication called Everywhere Tobago. These articles contain a synopsis of many hours of research about local culture, history and natural resources. Although the magazine is now defunct, these articles are still available for free on our page and Website.
Affordability is another very important aspect of our business. We believe that everyone of all socioeconomic backgrounds should be able to afford high quality local products. We charge the lowest possible prices for our goods and continue to work hard to keep our prices affordable.
Future Goals
Moving forward, we would like to grow Tura Homemade to be able to supply more customers more regularly. To achieve this, we would like to continue to purchase more equipment as well as open more days in the near future.
In the medium to long term we would like to expand to a bigger and better location offering a wider range of healthy and local products.
We are immensely grateful to all the people who have helped and supported us over the years. It has been an arduous journey at times but our passion for what we do and our love for people and planet is unwavering.
