By Patrick Traina
Venezuela–born, Trinidad & Tobago-raised, Debra Sandler acknowledges the importance of family values and traditions. Debra grew up in a big immigrant family—where emphasis is placed on embracing family culture and traditions. Debra’s family maintains their cultural roots and customs through the bonding of preparing home-cooked meals.
A lot of families traditionally have somebody that they considered the “chef,” and for Debra’s family that person is her beloved Auntie Mavis who has been cooking for everyone since she was thirteen years old. With that, the entire family grew up enjoying Auntie Mavis’ delicious cooking and growing with her recipes over the years. Debra was inspired by how much her family loved gathering around to help Auntie Mavis prepare entire meals. That inspiration led to the idea of creating a line of Caribbean pepper sauces & marinade, called Bazodee.
“My mother and father would always say ‘you can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough at it.’” — Debra Sandler
While Bazodee is manufactured in a factory in Pennsylvania, Debra has the privilege of operating the majority of the business through her home office. She receives shipment orders from the factory, and then distributes those orders to loyal e-commerce customers. She also creates and tests new innovative products and recipes in the convenience of her home kitchen.
From the inception of Bazodee, Debra wanted to draw on the inspiration of Auntie Mavis’ legacy in the kitchen by keeping the company in the family and working out of her own home. With this system, Debra is surrounded by her loved ones everyday which means they are able to contribute ideas, recipes and vision for Bazodee in order to remain a family-centric company. By working out of her own home, she can strategize with her daughter Kiah and concoct new recipe ideas with Auntie Mavis, all while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
“In a large family of passionate and hot-blooded Trinizuelans, you never know what’s coming next but you do know the music and the food will be great!” — Debra Sandler
Bazodee is a Trinidiadian word meaning, “crazy, head over heels in love,” which is exactly how most feel when they incorporate Bazodee into their everyday lifestyle. Bazodee sauces and marinades are designed to make for a quicker and easier way to spice up your dishes. Debra has gained over 30 years of innovation experience as a seasoned Corporate America Executive at companies such as PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson and most recently as the Chief Health and Wellbeing Officer at Mars. She has assisted in the launch of ingenious products like Splenda no calorie sweetener, Pretzel M&Ms introduction of Ms. Brown, and the Snickers commercial with Betty White.
Through these experiences, Debra started to recognize the increased market demand for healthy and minimally processed foods. She saw a need for a line of sauces the masses could easily incorporate into their family meals, and created it by removing unhealthy chemicals and additives. This inspired Debra to create Bazodee, all natural, vegan, gluten and preservative free sauces families feel proud to use!
Today, Bazodee’s beautifully blended sauce line currently has three flavors on the market: Hot Hot Soca Sauce, Soca Sauce and Marvelous Marinade. Soon, they are releasing two new flavors: Curry & Tamarind. When Debra first launched Bazodee, she focused her attention on cooking essentials such as sauces and seasonings. She plans on continuing to expand the company and product line beyond that in order to bring the real Trinidadian-venezuelan culture and food to everyone’s kitchen table.
Just like how Debra’s family created a bond through cooking, Bazodee has allowed Debra to create a similar bond with others through their philanthropic community efforts. Providing a sense of family to the less fortunate by taking part in making home-cooked meals for them in local communities within the Tri-State area and beyond, has been something the Bazodee team takes great pride in. Recently, Debra and her team visited the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, a Philadelphia shelter that provides three meals a day, 365 days a year to the homeless. While there, her team prepared a home cooked meal using Bazodee sauces, engaged with the guests, and created a family-like bond. They left feeling inspired, and motivated to continue this pay-it-forward initiative.
Debra hopes her journey will inspire eager and ambitious business owners to pursue their own passions. She also strives to motivate more aspiring entrepreneurs to create businesses that reflect their own family values and traditions.
For more information, you can check out Bazodee.com, where you can order Bazodee’s sauces and learn more about Debra and the Bazodee family. If you need inspiration for creating a dish, Bazodee’s website also provides delicious recipes that you can incorporate with each of Bazodee’s sauces!
