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Keya Wingfield, founder of Daksh Foods (Photo by Julianne Tripp Hillian)
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India-born and Virginia-trained, Wingfield moved to Richmond in 2005. Daksh Foods reflects her roots. (Photo by Julianne Tripp Hillian)
A native of Bombay, India, Richmond-based Keya Wingfield is an expert baker, creating stunning, flavorful treats that range from cardamom-almond loaf cakes to golden milk cookies. She’s proven her chops on TV, too, securing a win in 2021 on the seventh season of Food Network’s “Spring Baking Championship.’’
But for those who know her closely, or perhaps have been following her journey on Instagram, it’s clear that Wingfield’s true superpower lies in motherhood. It is a role that occupies every fiber of her being. It’s also the guiding light behind her latest, most ambitious and deeply personal endeavor to date. Next month, Wingfield plans to launch Daksh Foods, a multicultural snack brand and homage to her late son.
“He was 3 months old when he passed away, so it is purposely named that, because every bag of snacks that will go out to this world will have his name on it, and that’s my way of spreading his pixie dust,” Wingfield says.
Navigating an unimaginable tragedy, Wingfield has been putting in the work to find herself again. Through the healing process, she realized that her 5-year-old daughter, Uma, and her husband, David, deserved the best version of her. She made a promise to herself, and to them, that she would survive this devastating loss, and it’s one she plans to keep.
For the past year, Wingfield has been building Daksh Foods, whose brand name is also an ode to her late mother, Daksha. She has returned home to India to meet the farmers who supply her spices and participated in a cohort at Richmond startup accelerator Lighthouse Labs, winning the competition.
Wingfield says she has always cooked or baked to deal with grief. It is how she communicates with the world. Her message now: An immigrant entrepreneur and woman of color is ready to reinvent the way we consume and think about snacks. “Our goal is to saturate the Richmond market in a very specific way and then move north to D.C. and keep growing regionally, then national and then go global,” she says. “I go all the way or nothing.”
The vision is for Daksh Foods to offer a catalog of goods, including chai-masala popcorn, cardamom cookies and animal crackers with an Indian twist. The first item, already on store shelves, is Bombay Chips, originally created to merge her taste and that of her American husband.
“He has a fairly bland flavor palate, and I was like, ‘I’m going to fix that,’ so I was making this spice blend at home to put on food just for me because I was homesick,” she says. “I thought, how do I introduce him to this culture? What’s a soft introduction?”
Wingfield visits her spice partners’ factory in Gujarat, India. (Photo courtesy Keya Wingfield)
The answer: potato chips tossed in a 26-ingredient spice blend of everything from garam masala to fenugreek. “That’s how the Bombay Chip was born,” she says.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wingfield introduced an online ordering platform, Keya & Co., selling modern Indian meals and desserts for pickup and delivery. With each order, she also tossed in a bag of Bombay Chips. Soon after, her phone was buzzing with calls from curious customers.
“People started calling to order chips, and I’m like, ‘What chips?’ I was so confused,” she recalls. “I feel like overnight I learned how to make a [packaged] product, then word got out and retailers started calling me.”
This chip was crafted for the American palate from the Indian point of view.
—Keya Wingfield
The chips soon landed on local shelves at Ellwood Thompson’s, Barrel Thief, Perk!, Fine Creek Provisions and beyond, where they’ve been consistently selling out since.
“All of that was proof to go forward with this company. We’re at a point where we need to launch 2.0,” Wingfield says.
The next products to hit the market will be the ranch- and turmeric-tinged Golden Chips, followed by Black Salt Chips (India is a top producer of black salt), an umami-packed offering that Wingfield calls “the everyday chip.”
The Daksh Foods mascot is inspired by Annapurna, the Indian goddess of food and nourishment, with the logo and branding designed by Wingfield’s brother. The packaging tells the subtle story of her journey. On each bag is an image of Daksh’s footprint, along with the number 5, which denotes the day he was born (Feb. 5) and the number of people in Wingfield’s family; 55 is also how many days he lived.
“I feel like my consumers, my people, they deserve the most authentic version of me, and it comes with all the good and the bad and the happy and the sad, and I’ll always have that honesty,” Wingfield says. “I’m constantly always keeping up with my two cultures, and because we’re a multicultural brand, it’s as important for me to be as authentic to my flavor profile and story as I can be.”
