Bold Flavors and Family Tradition: The Story Behind Maazah

Article by: Ally Gammill | Photography Courtesy of Maazah | Published July 31, 2025

“If we can sell chutney here to the blandest taste buds in America, we’re on to something,”

—Yasameen Sajady, co-founder and CEO of Maazah

It started with a family recipe, a folding table at the Minneapolis Farmers Market, and a bold bet on cilantro chutney. Yasameen and Sheilla Sajady—first-generation Afghan-American sisters—launched Maazah in 2012, transforming their mother’s recipes into a thriving sauce and dip company. Based in Minneapolis, Maazah’s flavor-forward products now sit on shelves in Costco, Whole Foods, and other major retailers—taking up space where their culture has rarely been represented.

I met with the sisters at their brass-adorned office in Minneapolis, where we spoke over coffee about growing up Afghan in the Midwest, founding Maazah, and what authenticity means when your food traditions must adapt to survive. Like their chutney, their stories are vibrant, layered, and impossible to forget.

A Name That Means Flavor

Maazah means “flavor” in Farsi, the language spoken by their family, and nothing is bland about Maazah’s branding or products. Their labels are brightly colored with thick black font, the letters curved to resemble the flourishes of the Farsi alphabet. Their signature “magic” product, the squeeze-bottle Cilantro Chutney, has an herbaceous body, zesty notes of lemon, and bursts with spice—just spicy enough to appeal to their Midwestern market. It's the same flavor they know from their mother’s kitchen. “Our brand started around the table,” says Sheilla. Growing up, “everything was centered around the food” for their large extended family. “​​Abundance and bringing people into your home is a very big part of our culture.” 

A Brand with a Backstory

Sheilla, the CCO of the brand, previously spent years leading design for Target, expertise that is obvious when looking at their bottles and tubs. Brands have never been just shapes and colors to her, but stories that draw an emotional connection to the consumer, a realization she had long ago as a kid when she plastered ads from United Colors of Benetton all over her walls. “You only have three seconds to tell that story or get that emotional connection with your package when a consumer is looking at 20 other packages on the shelf,” she says. 

Their revamped logo features two women facing a tree, which they describe as a “family tree,” where “the fronds of the tree, each leaf represents a person in our family.” The circle at the top “represents our mom because everything that we do is inspired by her.” Family, especially their mother, is at the brand’s anchor, the main story they wish to communicate through the branding. 

But the story behind Maazah is heavy. Maazah exists to represent “this beautiful culture that our parents have shared with us.” Due to the ongoing war, they have never visited their parents’ country of origin.“We probably won't ever,” says Sheilla. “But there's also this really beautiful part of the culture that not a lot of people are familiar with, like beautiful food, beautiful artistry. There's so many other things that are so rich in culture.” They see those parts of their culture not being shared, and want Maazah to open that perspective up to American consumers. Sheilla explains that with their new look, “subtle pieces of our culture come together to build this look and feel of what our packaging looks like now. We wanted it to feel of our culture, but also of this time.”

It’s Mom’s Cilantro Or Else

Of course, good design means little without flavor to match. Sitting between us was a beige ‘strawberry rhubarb’ scone, frosted baby pink, that we all agreed tasted only of sugar. They quickly saw through the lackluster flavor, pinning it as using “rhubarb extract” or “just food coloring.” The Sajady sisters do not make the same mistake with their sauces; they’ve been taught well. At home, their mother never cooked with a recipe; rather she tasted, smelled, and felt her food; authentic flavor to them is an embodied experience. 

From a production standpoint, this isn’t exactly efficient. Yasameen explained that throughout the research and development of the products, she often found herself at Restaurant Depot on FaceTime with her mom looking for the right type of cilantro—a selection process that took two years. Her response was always that she had to taste it, pushing Yasameen to describe the shape, color, taste, and smell of the leaf. “We call her the taste buds of Maazah,” said Sheilla about her mom, a literal fact of the company. Still to this day, their mother will come with them to a production run and “taste right off the line.” Tedious, maybe, but “having the focus on your ingredients and understanding what makes a product taste good is so important,” says Sheilla. 

“Food Is the Connector”

Observing them at the recent Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City, the sisters greeted investors and other brand founders from their exquisite, bright green booth with a friendly zeal—more like what you’d find at a neighborhood block party than an industry convention. Greetings were individualized, making their work seem more like connecting than networking. “Food is the connector,” says Sheilla. “Everyone else has their own story around their food…something brings them back to the meal that they were having.” To them, this business isn’t just work, but an effort to extend their community. 

“We feel that's our greatest asset, just who we are,” says Yasameen. Because, ultimately, we the consumers are just looking for a way to connect with real people and real ingredients. She puts it plainly: 

“A General Mills, Target, or Unilever can't make this up in an authentic way. It's just not possible.” 

Yasameen emphasized at the end of our conversation that “the customer is what is keeping Maazah alive. There is nobody that wants to see two brown women win in this industry right now.” Maazah’s backstory isn’t just something to tell investors. To them, it's important not to forget the women back in Afghanistan, but, as Yasameen puts it, “also use our own power and our own voice to bring a connection to the culture and to the country.” Sadly, they’re witnessing the erasure of its culture. “History is being erased. Artworks are being burned. Books are being banned,” says Sheilla, making Maazah’s mission that much deeper and the sharing of their mother’s recipes that much more crucial for preserving what is authentic to them.

Maazah is a sustaining voice for Afghan culture. And sometimes, that voice comes in the form of a squeeze bottle. Herbaceous. Spicy. A little bold.

Just like them.