What is kubé?

kubé is a Black woman-led, vegan ice cream manufacturing, social enterprise based in Oakland, California that started in 2016. Kubé is a new genre of the BEST TASTING coconut vegan ice cream, without synthetic chemical preservatives (No Sodium Metabisulfite). 

With patent-pending coconut equipment, we crack, shred, and cold-press mature coconuts to obtain its fresh coconut cream. Then, we blend cold-pressed coconut cream with plant-based, organic ingredients, to make the BEST TASTING, non-dairy ice cream, without synthetic chemicals. Customers are surprised that they can not detect any coconut flavor in our ice cream; only the clean and bold plant-based flavors dominate. 

All our coconut byproducts make compost for urban, organic community farms in Oakland, to create regenerative soil.  This regenerative soil creates nutrient-dense food in food desert communities. For now, we give all our byproducts to plantingjustice.org in East Oakland, California.

kubé inspires ice cream enthusiasts world-wide, who are often the lactose intolerant, allergen population, and vegan-health conscious populations, that desire healthier food systems grounded in racial and gender equity, regenerative agriculture, and climate justice.

kubé, is leading the next inclusive and regenerative economy. Our triple bottom line is addressing the most critical issues of our time: restorative economics and food justice, racial and gender equity, and environmental sustainability. 

Over the last two years (2018-2020), the demand for kubé has far exceeded our capacity to supply. As a vegan ice cream manufacturer, we have been challenged by not having our own kubé manufacturing facility to produce product everyday. For the past two years, we have been producing in our “Pilot Testing Facility (renting a shared-commercial kitchen).  We have been restricted to weekends only which also reduces the amount of product we can produce.

From 2017-2018, we were selling kubé at farmers’ markets, cultural events, and PopUps in the Bay Area. In 2018-2020, prior to Covid-19, we were heavily selling to popular tech companies in the Bay Area and employees wanted more kubé for their offices.

In 2019, we purchased an automatic coconut de-shelling machinery to scale production, and we expect it to arrive by this October 2020. We are identifying new commercial kitchens in Oakland, now, to lease so that we can start making product everyday.

We'd Love Your Support

We are looking to you, our kubé community, to help us add industrial machinery and make more kubé nice cream available to you by acquiring two critical pieces of equipment:

• Larger industrial pasteurizer for the coconut cream
• Larger ice cream machine to full-fill the demand for customers and grocery stores

The pasteurizer and ice cream equipment will help us scale with our new (hands-free) coconut automatic de-shelling machine, and will help us scale from 150-units of 3.5 oz containers a day, to 2,000-units per day, of 3.5oz containers.

We are currently selling product on our website, and customers are picking up via curbside pick-up from our commercial kitchen. We are also working on getting our product into health food stores and Good Eggs (Bay Area, California online grocery), that delivers directly to the consumer, within the Bay Area by October, 2020. Our plan is to sell to cooperative grocery stores, health food stores, online grocery stores, vegan restaurants, weddings, and corporate events later on.

If you are inspired by our story to re-build healthier and regenerative food systems and manufacturing models, please contribute to our campaign.

Isn't it just vegan ice cream? No? It’s liberation ice cream with social and economic impact.

kubé is liberation nice cream!  kubé liberates people, animals, and soil from systems of abuse and synthetic chemicals. The future of vegan ice cream and all vegan food is about building regenerative economies that restore life and health back to people, animals, and the soil. The current system that oppresses, incarcerates, slaughters people of color and Black folks for profit is the same system that oppresses, incarcerates, and slaughters animals for profit, in the factory farming system. We all, regardless of whether you are vegan or not, must link these dots in order to evolve humanity and to rebuild NEW economic liberation models, that restore economic equity back to formerly incarcerated folks in need of meaningful jobs and that liberate mama cows from forced lactation.

kubé exists to restore health, joy, dignity, and trusted relationships back to the lactose intolerant population, the allergen population, ice cream enthusiasts, and to people of color who have been historically excluded from employment and ownership within the plant-based, food industry.

kubé awakens, inspires, and transforms lives. It’s about building NEW economic liberation models that restore life and vibrancy back to people, animals, and the soil. We will be hiring formerly incarcerated women who are survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. At kubé, we are building a full circle regenerative economy to restore value, life, dignity, and health back to ice cream enthusiasts and historically oppressed groups.

Personal Motivation for starting kubé nice cream

Our personal motivation for starting kubé was to create a premium vegan coconut ice cream from fresh, mature coconuts, without synthetic chemicals (No Sodium Metabisulfite). I value curiosity, discovery, truth, shared wisdom, empathy, positive social impact, and healthy science. These are many of the ingredients needed to build a healthier world.

Creating kubé was really about necessity and good health, and understanding that we are lactose intolerant. It was necessary for us to make real, mature coconut cream the way our ancestors did; without synthetic chemicals. We knew that “necessity is the mother of invention” that we solved for ourselves and millions of people who are lactose intolerant, health conscious, and live with allergies. Using real coconuts without synthetic chemicals and no artificial coconut flavoring or other artificial flavors, makes the BEST TASTING coconut ice cream!

Problem: Hidden Chemical in the international coconut cream industry

My co-founder and I were both outraged when we discovered that all imported “organic coconut cream” and “organic coconut ice cream” is made with a hidden bleaching chemical preservative called, Sodium Metabisulfite. We contacted and spoke with various coconut manufacturers around the world, and they were all very transparent about using Sodium Metabisulfite to bleach the coconut cream white and "disinfect" it, to prolong the shelf life of organic and non-organic coconut cream. The FDA does not require brands of “organic coconut ice cream” or “organic coconut cream” to disclose the use of Sodium Metabisulfite in the ingredients when there is 10-ppm in the final product, but if there is 30-ppm, the brand must list Sodium Metabisulfite.

The use of Sodium Metabisulfite is an international industry standard practice, to bleach the coconut cream white to look fresh, after cooking it, and to prolong the shelf life of coconut cream in the can and carton for up to 5-years. However, many people are allergic to Sodium Metabisulfite and scientists have substantiated that it causes gastro-intestinal and hormonal issues in people. It is not a food justice model and we do NOT use it.

Community Health and Regenerative Agriculture

We have a sense of urgency to transform the coconut cream industry with new food models that restore health and dignity back to people, coconut farmers, and ice cream enthusiasts. We currently purchase our mature coconuts from Mexico, via local produce distributors in the Bay Area, and we are looking to work directly with coconut farmers to practice direct trade.

All our coconut byproducts make compost for urban, organic community farms, to create regenerative soil. This regenerative soil creates nutrient-dense food in low-income communities of color. We give all our byproducts to Planting Justice in East Oakland, California. However, once we obtain more compost we will sell it to bigger farms to upcycle it to add towards employee wages.

Structural Racism in the Plant-Based Food Industry

Kubé is addressing the structural racism that exists within the plant-based food industry, where Black manufacturers have been historically excluded from business ownership within the plant-based food industry. kubé is transforming this landscape in the California Bay Area, with plans to be global in Jamaica, the Caribbean, Canada, Ghana, and beyond.

At kubé, I have experienced many investors, in the plant-based food industry asking me for my proprietary process all in the name of “picking my brain.” I never tell them my special magic! These Investors have asked me to teach their resort staff how to make kubé for their wealth creation, and to extract my proprietary process and give it to co-packers in the US to make millions! We will not be working with a co-packer to make kubé.We are a vegan ice cream manufacturer with proprietary processes and methods that we keep.

Other  Investors have asked me to work at their “popular” food companies to make kubé for them, by giving me a “high paying job in R&D,” and by telling me I can’t be a manufacturer, so I should just work for them. This is unacceptable in 2020! We exist to rebuild and transform!

Job Creation and Social Transformation

Co-founders Kai and Nee-Nueh desired to rebuild healthier food systems and new food manufacturing models for vegan coconut ice cream, without synthetic chemicals, in order to restore value and health back to all people and ice cream enthusiasts.

Kubé inspires, awakens, and transforms lives. We will be creating meaningful, high paying jobs in the Oakland-Berkeley, California community. Everyone needs personal and social transformation. We will be building a diverse staff and providing opportunities to returning citizens (formerly incarcerated women) of various ethnicities, survivors of domestic violence, system abuse, and human trafficking.

Developed Intellectual Property - for Coconut Robotic Automation

Our patent-pending coconut scraper device, that we invented, was designed for food-tech, coconut-robotic-automation, which will crack and shred coconuts all in one process (hands free). This will increase worker safety and prevent coconut workers from injuring their hands, all over the world. This coconut scraper device was developed in 2016, with the support of our mechanical engineer, and we submitted our patent application in 2017. According to our patent attorney, the device should be patented by December, 2020. Currently, there is no high-tech, coconut-robotic-automation that exists in coconut manufacturers around the world. We are creating and planning to manufacture this new coconut robotic machinery in the near future.