The healing power of food: in conversation with Baneta
From biomedical scientist to bakery owner, I sat down with new Trustee, Baneta Yelda, to find out more about her journey into the world of bread and being a refugee in the UK.
Baneta, can you tell us a bit more about your life - how did you go from being a biomedical scientist to a bakery owner?
So, I came to the UK in 2014 as a refugee. Before then, I had done my MBA in healthcare management and I had gone back to Iraq to work with a British government charity. Then in 2014, while I was here on a holiday, ISIS were advancing throughout Northern Iraq and at that time got very near to Erbil, my home city, and I literally didn't go back. My flight kept getting postponed, I was hoping that I would be able to go back but I never got a chance. So I was left with no option but to apply for asylum.
Because my background was in biomedical science, I worked in the NHS in a pathology department in North London. At the time, I really got into cooking, I think because I was flat sharing with different girls from different places and they were very inspiring to me. We used to have lots of dinners and then we would talk a lot about food. It was the first time I realised I could tell my story through food, which was much less political and was much less sad. I thought, oh my god I love doing this - why not just try doing this for a living?
So I took it step by step. I spoke with the Refugee Council for advice on the food industry and decided to quit my job. I went part time and then the other half of my time, I would go around restaurants and ask them if I could work in their kitchens. I trained myself to become a chef. After a year and a half of doing that, I was approached by the Refugee Forum and another refugee charity, TERN, they offered me a scholarship at the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire to do the Advanced Diploma in Artisan Baking.
I was very, very passionate about that because while I didn't really know how to bake, my family, well, all the generations before me have been very good bakers.. My mum always made the bread at home. My dad made bread and my grandmother used to be a Community Baker. I thought, wow, I’ve got this great opportunity. So I quit my jobs, drove to Welbeck in Nottinghamshire and started a six month course there!
Wow what a journey! How did you come to own Companio Bakery?
After my six-month course I came back to London and worked in a few bakeries. And then an opportunity came along - there was a bakery in Manchester that was for sale. I looked at it and in my head I said ‘Yeah of course, this is like a dream but I will never be able to buy this’. But luckily for me, my friend Neil and an investor joined together and we were able to buy the bakery - Companio Bakery.
I packed up all my stuff once again and moved to Manchester. After a week of being in Manchester, my co-owner Neil and I were standing in the bakery looking at each other and realised: ‘Oh my god. Tomorrow we will have people coming in to buy bread. We better not mess this up!’ Neil and I put in 16 hours a day working in the bakery during this time. Now we have four staff, six including Neil and I. We're so happy with the bakery and we're also looking into expanding now.
What future do you see for the bakery?
Neil and I had a very similar vision. We wanted to establish a bakery, but we didn't want to do it just for the financial success of the bakery - we wanted to work with the community and collaborate with different entities and charities. In particular, we want to invite children with special needs and disabilities to learn how to make bread, along with refugee organisations to increase employment amongst refugees.
What made you want to be a Trustee for Breadwinners?
When I decided to get into the food world, for me, it was about giving. That's one of the values I hold really close to my heart, because it was given to me by my grandparents and my parents. When I was growing up, we were very poor. We might have only enough food to eat one meal but my parents would still have guests around to eat despite this.
As an Iraqi refugee, I hear great stories of survival, of overcoming all this pain and grief, but we all deserve to have downtime. For me, this is cooking, it makes us feel safe and in common with each other. We laugh, we cry, we’re just humans. So that was my main reason for wanting to get into charity work, because if I can heal a small fracture of someone's pain with food, then I will be very, very privileged.
In terms of Breadwinners, I saw how great it is to use bread to increase employment for young people. Breadwinners is good because it's not only about teaching someone how to sell bread, but it's also how to communicate with people and through that, you learn a lot about the culture in this country. It's a very good method to help integrate refugees into society here in the UK. I also believe it will help raise the community’s awareness of the refugees themselves.
“If I can heal a small fracture of someone’s pain with food, then I will be very, very privileged.”
What one piece of advice would you share with the young refugees we work with?
What I learned is to say yes to opportunities. We all come from different countries, different cultures. A lot of things might be very new or different here. They might be scary, but that doesn't mean they are bad things. Just saying yes! to things opens a lot of doors.
And if you’re nervous about saying yes to situations, how can young people build that courage?
I have a habit of stopping, thinking and reflecting on things whenever they happen. I don't just randomly make decisions. I think it comes from my family. I would say my grandmother was a very courageous woman. She became a refugee when she was 16 in a new country all by herself. She came from Iran to Iraq, got married and raised a family. My other grandparents were also refugees from Turkey and came to Iraq. They all had these brave stories of saying yes and then always being thankful for what life gave them. So I think it's like the quote I've heard, “It's not about what happens to us, it's about how we react to situations”.
My last question, perhaps the hardest one to answer, what is your favourite type of bread?
Can I pick three?! I like a good wholemeal sourdough that I can have for day to day. I also really like making kofta at home. So when I do that, I like making a good quality lavash bread. Lastly, I really like brioche. I use brioche in the bakery to make really nice cinnamon buns which are one of my favourite things to eat.
Thank you so much to Baneta for telling us about your journey into the world of bread and the impact you hope to have at Breadwinners as our new Trustee. We’re delighted to have you as part of the team!
You can learn more about Baneta and Companio Bakery here. Follow Baneta on Instagram and Companio Bakery on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.