Right off the bat, Iliyaas Muhammad, founder of Really Reel Ginger in Philadelphia makes his angle clear, “Ginger ale has little to no ginger in it.” To which, I would add, it really isn’t an ale. All jokes aside, Really Reel Ginger, which Muhammad started back in 2011 as an entrepreneurial endeavor out of his own kitchen, now offers thirsty patrons of Philadelphia’s bustling Reading Terminal Market refreshing and healthy beverages infused with real ginger.
For Iliyaas Muhammad and his wife, Hadia, the ginger beverage has become a decade long grind that started as a suggestion, turned into a door to door sales pitch, and has planted them in a bustling market stall. Interestingly, the story of this Philadelphian business, and the ginger beverage it runs on, began in Mali.
In the early 2000s, Muhammad served in Mali as a small enterprise development volunteer with the Peace Corps. While there, he met his wife, who grew up in Mali. This experience in Mali tied the two main threads of Really Reel Ginger’s existence together even before it was an idea: business and ginger drinks. Muhammad says that he chose the enterprise development position for a reason: “I applied for that position because I wanted to learn more about business on the ground with people. I thought ‘One day you’ll be a self-made entrepreneur.’”
It just so happened that Malian people enjoy homemade ginger beverages around holidays. He remembers that different women would sell the homemade beverages door-to-door or at roadside stands. It was a beverage he hadn’t been exposed to before. In his words, “Before coming to Mali I had seen ginger roots before, and my mother loved ginger ale, but it wasn’t until I got to Africa that I saw and tasted actual ginger.”
Malians are expert healers that rely on native plants and traditional knowledge. While not the key active ingredient, ginger can sometimes be included in these medicinal concoctions. (Togola) More than medicinal, these ginger drinks, such as jinjinbere and lenburuji, are sharp and citrusy refreshments. Thanks to her Malian upbringing, Hadia knew these drinks well and had the know-how to make them.
When the couple returned to Philadelphia, Hadia would brew a ginger concoction on festive occasions. Meanwhile, Muhammad began working on combining his community-centric Peace Corps experience with his entrepreneurial aspirations. He was working as a community organizer and selling t-shirts on the side. For one event, Muhammad remembers, “My wife dissuaded me from selling t-shirts. ‘Why don’t you sell the juice? The ginger drink.’ ‘I’ll give it a shot.’ I said. We made about 400 of them–sold about 300 in an hour.”
The next day, he sold the other 100 drinks to another business and the idea stuck. Muhammad slowly began to supplement his community development income with ginger drink sales. He knew folks out in the community, and leveraged those connections. “I would take these coolers of drinks to work with me. At lunch, I would sell these to barber shops and salons nearby. I would make $100 during a lunch break. That’s a big deal when I’m working a job that makes $100 a day.” It was a grass-roots business, but he was selling a category that most Philadelphians hadn’t tried yet.
In the early years, Really Reel Ginger was anywhere that people were thirsty. He would attend fairs and festivals, go to restaurants and salons. He says he would even set up a table at house parties if they let him. “Any time you turned your head you saw me there. I was everywhere.” He became the ginger man.
It was not until Muhammad moved up in the professional world of community organizing that Really Reel Ginger escaped the realm of a hustle. When he got a job downtown, he found it more difficult to sell the beverages on his lunch break. He no longer had the intimate community connections, and downtown businesses weren’t receptive to the cooler-toting ginger beverage salesman. But then he had lunch with a colleague at Reading Terminal Market.
Muhammad’s recipe for his ginger drink had won some competitions, and he was ready to show the trendy market’s management what he could do. “They tasted it and loved it,” he remembers. He was given two days a week to sell the drinks off of a cart in the market: Wednesday and Sunday. Ever the hustler, he took what he got and capitalized on it, or as he puts it, “Wednesday and Sunday was way better than nothing. I worked the crap out of Wednesday and Sunday.”
The hard work and the good ginger paid off. Really Reel Ginger now has a permanent stall at the front of Reading Terminal Market. And people love his stuff. The main attraction? Real ginger, of course.
Muhammad educates on the health qualities of ginger and the flavoring ingredients he uses in his drinks-hibiscus, baobab, lemon, and mint. All real ingredients, they combine for an anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and tasty concoction. Muhammad reflects, “I am selling health and wellness. People were buying cases of the stuff.” The couple have since added additional health offerings like natural soaps and creams to their stand. Always pivoting, always hustling, and always selling ginger.
Muhammad has learned a lot in the last decade, but he fully credits the idea to his wife. The drinks were her idea, and although they are inspired by ginger beverages in Mali, they have become something entirely unique. He explains, “The products that I do sell, they’re not actually Malian anymore because we altered and innovated. If I give a Malian my drink, they’ll be surprised.”
Malian in origin, but Philadelphian in result, Really Reel Ginger has spent a decade introducing Americans to a category of beverage that was largely unknown. But the health qualities of the root precede it, and Muhammad can now plan ahead. All he is willing to say about the future, “Being in business over a decade, I’m really trying to aim things.” Surely, he will aim high. Just like his ginger beverages, this entrepreneur’s outlook on business is perpetually refreshing.
Kruger, Marie. “The Relationship between Theatre and Ritual in the Sogo bò of the Bamana from Mali.” New Theatre Quarterly 25.3 (2009): 233-240.
Togola, Adiaratou, et al. “Ethnopharmacological survey of different uses of seven medicinal plants from Mali,(West Africa) in the regions Doila, Kolokani and Siby.” Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 1.1 (2005): 1-9.
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