Local mom finds success with dry food mixes

Kim Harris Denicola knows what it’s like to be a working mom who comes home tired, stressed and looking for an answer to the question, “What’s for dinner?”

Denicola has five children, and three still live at home.

“You try to come home and put something together for dinner, but you don’t have time,” she says. “There are school projects, various sporting events … I thought there had to be other women besides me without a minute to spare.”

After a few experiments in the kitchen, she started her own business in 2009, making gourmet dry food mixes for bisques, jambalaya, étoufée, gumbo, pastalaya and dirty rice. The mixes come from recipes Denicola and her husband David culled over the years and feature a little bit of Italian flair.

Now, Denicola’s Foods has “quadrupled its business and size,” she says, and they are in talks with three large grocery chains to be in stores nationwide later this year. Locally, the products are already available at Calandro’s, Calvin’s Bocage Market, Bet-R, Alexander’s Highland Market and Rouses stores across south Louisiana.

“I wouldn’t say I expected this to happen,” she says. “It was my dream, though. In my mind, I knew this wasn’t the case with just women in Louisiana. [Not having enough time to prepare dinner] is something that’s happening to women everywhere. With these mixes, you can relax a little bit and spend time with the family.”

For more information, visit Denicola’s Foods on Facebook.