Our Journey

2025 – The inception

November

I love building projects, and I was really moved by the charitable mission of local organizations. I found two products with high demand and limited supply and am using MANU as a way to address the acute need for affordable high quality local food. We are named MANU because this organization is an expression of my energy and my name is Manuel. We started by selling as a microbusiness under the Urban Oasis Project.

December

We are working to moving into retail spaces and developing partnerships with local organizations. Our first relationship is Beehive Natural Foods!

2026

January – First Kitchen

After operating as a cottage food operation for two months, our mission is to move into a commercial kitchen and get our official food license. This will unlock our ability to sell at retail locations!

February – Living Wage Commitment

We already pay our part-time team 30/hr, but now we want to build a full time team to accelerate our mission!

June – MANU’s Table Initiative Launch

Our sales to date will be tallied up and MANU will have its first large scale donation based on the proceeds from the first half of the year.

Throughout the year

It’s not lost on us that selling premium products is still inaccessible to many. Of course thats why we have our Table initiative, to completely eliminate barriers, but dignity through food means that people don’t need to wait for a charitable event to happen to access high quality (normal) food. Before MANU, the only local Peanut Butter brand cost $17/lb. We already decreased the cost by 42% with simple operational efficiency. We won’t stop there. We will keep dropping our price through advancements in our operations, all while keeping our wages fair and our quality high.