Are there prominent somali-owned franchises or chains headquartered in minnesota and who are their founders?
Executive summary
The reporting shows a clear presence of Somali-founded businesses in Minnesota, but few examples that fit the traditional definition of multi-location franchises or regional chains; the most prominent Somali-founded multi-location food business cited is Afro Deli, founded by Abdirahman Kahin, and an emerging Minnesota-headquartered packaged-food brand with Somali roots is Hoyo, co-founded by Mariam Mohamed [1] [2]. Broader coverage emphasizes hundreds of Somali-owned ventures across the Twin Cities and central Minnesota—many small, community-focused enterprises—while noting structural barriers that limit scaling into large franchise systems [3] [4] [5].
1. Afro Deli: the clearest example of a Somali-founded regional food business
Afro Deli is repeatedly cited as one of the most successful immigrant-owned businesses in Minnesota, operating multiple Twin Cities locations (two open with a third planned at the time of reporting) and a sizable catering arm that serves corporate clients such as General Mills and Target, and its founder is Abdirahman Kahin [1] [6]. Those profiles present Kahin’s story as emblematic of Somali entrepreneurship in Minnesota: a founder who built a recognizable, multi-location food brand aimed at both the Somali community and broader customers, which meets a narrow working definition of a regional chain [1] [6].
2. Hoyo: a Minnesota-headquartered Somali-rooted packaged-food startup
Hoyo, a Minneapolis-area company that produces frozen sambusas, lists Mariam Mohamed as a co-founder and emphasizes hiring Somali women in production; the firm is led operationally by CEO Matt Glover and experienced a pandemic sales spike while relying on grocery demos and local food-ecosystem support to grow [2]. Hoyo is not presented in the sources as a franchise network of restaurants, but as a packaged-food brand headquartered in Minnesota with Somali cultural roots and Somali leadership among its founders [2].
3. Many Somali entrepreneurs, few large-scale franchise rollouts
Multiple sources document hundreds of Somali-owned enterprises in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and communities like Willmar, with estimates of hundreds of businesses and substantial community purchasing power, but they stop short of identifying a broad roster of Somali-owned franchise headquarters in Minnesota [3] [7]. Scholarly and community reporting highlights entrepreneurship as pervasive—street-level shops, restaurants, specialty malls like Karmel Mall and food stalls abound—but also stresses that most businesses are small, locally oriented, and face capital, planning and scaling constraints that limit franchise-style expansion [4] [8] [5].
4. Context and competing narratives: celebration versus structural limits
Local business coverage often spotlights Somali success stories to illustrate community resilience and entrepreneurship, but the same reporting points to a complicated reality: visible successes like Afro Deli coexist with data showing many Somali families remain on lower socioeconomic rungs, and many owners struggle to expand beyond single or a handful of locations [1] [6]. Community-development reporting and nonprofits emphasize alternative measures of success—micro-scaling, networks, and informal capital through family and community—which can produce notable local brands without producing nationally franchised chains [5] [4].
5. What the records do—and don’t—show
The assembled sources identify at least one clear Somali-founded multi-location food business (Afro Deli) and a Minnesota-headquartered packaged-food company with Somali co-founders (Hoyo), but they do not catalog a long list of Somali-owned franchise headquarters in Minnesota; rather, the evidence points to a dense ecosystem of small businesses, restaurants and ethnic retail that enriches local commerce without converting into large franchise empires in the documented reporting [1] [2] [3]. If there are other Somali-founded chains or franchisors headquartered in Minnesota beyond those noted, the provided reporting does not document them directly [2] [1] [3].