Ayesha Curry has her hands in a lot of different pots. The 34-year-old chef and wife to Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry has signed nearly every kind of deal in the food industry.
In addition to publishing two bestselling cookbooks and starring in her own cooking series on the Food Network, she has an eponymous cookware line (sold at Target and Walmart) and lifestyle brand, Sweet July, that includes a magazine, a book imprint, and a product such as coffee, candles and a superfood-formulated skincare line. Her pop-up with acclaimed chef Michael Mina, International Smoke, evolved into two full-fledged restaurants in Las Vegas and San Francisco. Perhaps her greatest triumph came when she cofounded the Napa Valley-based wine brand Domaine Curry in 2015 and sold it to alcohol giant Constellation last June for what Forbes estimates to be in the low eight figures. Along the way, Curry has created a playbook for how to succeed in the food industry—without a formal culinary education.
“You have to wrap your arms around whatever it is you’re putting out there and it truly does have to stem from a place of desire in your own life,” she tells Forbes.
Curry seeds other entrepreneurial brands as well. She has backed several startups, including Mill, a trash can that recycles food scraps, and the sugar alternative The Supplant Co. After working mushroom-growing startup Back To The Roots for a decade, she joined the company’s board in 2022.
“For me, it’s more about impact over legacy,” says the mother of three, who also established the Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation in 2019 with her husband to help combat childhood hunger in the Oakland area. “My hope is to make a lasting impact in the space. People don’t have to know it was me or know my name. But if we can change the way the industry looks and the way products are looked at and used and the impact on the community, that will be worth it.”
Curry, whose mother ran a hair salon out of the basement of their family home, is going all in on her businesses. She opened Sweet July’s first retail store opened in Oakland in 2021, and her second opens later this year. It’s a risky bet she’s more than willing to make.
“I’ve learned you have no idea what’s going to work,” she says, “and what’s not.”
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