Lilian Umurungi-Jung, founder of Mumgry, started her line of nut butters in 2019 with the help of close friends and family.Felicia Chang
In 2019, Vancouver-based Lilian Umurungi-Jung found herself at a crossroads.
The company she was working for suddenly shut down and Umurungi-Jung, who was nearing the end of her maternity leave, would soon be out of work.
A year earlier, while she was pregnant, she came up with an idea to launch a good-for-you line of nut butters, called Mumgry. She had been struggling to find clean, natural snack options in the grocery aisle to satisfy her cravings.
“I went job hunting, but realized I didn’t want to work for anyone any more,” she recalls. “My brain was racing with ideas for Mumgry and I wanted to give it a shot.”
Umurungi-Jung decided to put her severance toward starting a new business. She launched Mumgry in October, 2019.
Mumgry was the snack line she had needed most: Nut butters made with the dietary needs of mothers in mind, for before, during and after pregnancy. Products that are low in sugar, and high in protein, iron and calcium. Umurungi-Jung’s first product was a smooth peanut butter, made with no additional sugar or salt. She later added a protein-rich chocolate peanut butter spread and a pistachio chocolate almond butter to the product line.
Today, Mumgry is available online, in retail locations across the U.S. and Canada and on food delivery app GoPuff. The company’s Instagram serves a community of more than 13,000 followers, and its website offers recipes, both sweet and savoury, to its visitors.
Mumgry’s success wouldn’t have been possible without the help of a few close friends and family members, including her mother, early-on.
“Where I’m from, which is Rwanda, my mom roasted nuts throughout my childhood,” Umurungi-Jung explains. “She’d come over and roast nuts with me and play with different temperatures. She brought the fun out in the work and has always been someone who’s pushed me to take risks and try new things.”
When it came to technical aspects of running a business, like bookkeeping, Umurungi-Jung turned to her sister-in-law, who is an accountant. “She’s always been one of the most supportive people in our circle,” Umurungi-Jung says. “She provided us with a ‘101′ on how to ensure that the business remains in good standing and that our books are nice and clean.”
Support from an informal network of advisers helped Umurungi-Jung build her brand into a successful business that did not just weather the pandemic, it thrived in it.
Mumgry’s growth is also thanks in part to an influential shoutout in Beyoncé's Black Parade Route in June, 2020, which included Mumgry in its list of Black-owned businesses to celebrate and support. Zerina Akers, a fashion stylist and costume designer who works with Beyoncé, was a big part of curating the list of recommended businesses, and Umurungi-Jung looks to Akers as a model of how to run a business.
“If it wasn’t for her, I don’t believe that our business would have had the motivation to keep going during the pandemic,” Umurungi-Jung says. In particular, she says she admires the way Akers not only runs her business, but supports others along the way. When Umurungi-Jung hosted a Halloween competition for her community on social media, she reached out to Akers to be a judge. Akers happily agreed.
“The way that she has continued to offer her time and energy to other businesses,” Umurungi-Jun says, “she is someone who walks the walk and talks the talk.”
In 2021, Mumgry was invited to take part in a small business accelerator program hosted by Gopuff, a snack and food delivery company based in the United States. The program gave Umurungi-Jung the opportunity to take Mumgry to the next level by meeting with Gopuff’s marketing, merchandising and supply chain team members. “Different departments offered their resources and knowledge, and were available for Q&As,” Umurungi-Jung recalls.
One session with a marketing team member inspired Umurungi-Jung to shift away from thinking Mumgry products were mostly for breakfast. “We created more recipes that were diverse and applicable to evening meals, dinner and late-night snacks,” she explains. It’s just one of the ways that Umurungi-Jung has evolved her brand over the years.
"[My mom] brought the fun out in the work and has always been someone who’s pushed me to take risks and try new things," says Umurungi-Jung.Felicia Chang
Four years into running her business full-time, Umurungi-Jung has found herself in the position of being able to offer her time to others, much like Zerina Akers did for Mumgry. In October, Umurungi-Jung met with participants of Free Label’s Empowerful Incubator for BIPOC small business owners.
“I was speaking to female entrepreneurs that are kick-starting their businesses,” she explains. Umurungi-Jung spent time sharing her story and answering questions from the participants, hearing about their pain points and offering advice for the challenges they were navigating.
“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” she says. “It made me realize that I want to make more of an impact.”