When Temitope Ajayi-Salami founded AYT Foods Ltd in 2023, she wasn’t only launching the first Afro-Caribbean grocery store in Fife.

She was building a bridge between cultures, memories of home, and communities who had long needed a place that felt like theirs.

AYT Foods quickly became more than a shop with shelves filled with culturally familiar food and also adding delivery services and community initiatives. The shop became a gathering point, a lifeline, a taste of belonging. And people noticed. Within two years, the store had earned multiple awards, including UK StartUp Consumer Products Start-Up of the Year and Best Afro-Caribbean Food Retail Company in Scotland.

Temitope’s vision, however, didn’t stop at four walls. She is the convener of the Afro-Caribbean Summer Festival, the first of its kind in Scotland, which in 2025 drew over 6,000 people to celebrate food, music, culture, and unity. This little idea Temitope had become a movement thereby showing proof of what happens when heritage and community take centre stage.

Through her social enterprise, TMAS Community CIC, she has widened her impact even further. From a self-funded food bank, to energy-saving workshops, to projects like the Grow West Fife African Veg Project, Temitope has used entrepreneurship as a tool for empowerment, ensuring that community needs are met with both creativity and care.

She tells her story openly through Journey with TMAS, a digital platform where she documents her ventures, events, and cultural storytelling. Her transparency is part of her strength. Temitope shows the successes as well as the process and invites others to believe that they too can build something meaningful.

Her work has earned her recognition on global stages such as the Forty Under 40 UK People’s Choice Award and the Global Recognition Awards 2024. However, these awards are not the goal for Temitope. Legacy is. She is determined to leave behind more than businesses. She wants to leave behind a stronger, prouder, more connected community.

At her core, Temitope Ajayi-Salami is more than an entrepreneur. She is a cultural convener, a bridge-builder, a woman creating spaces where heritage is celebrated and futures are inspired.

What Temitope has built is not just hers. It belongs to everyone who ever longed for a taste of home, a place of unity, or a reminder that culture is something we carry forward.