Elsy Dinvil of Creole Me Up!

Images by Shaun Linfoot and Rowena Reynald

IF you are a Portland Farmers Markets habitué, you have likely been greeted by the ear-to-ear grin of Elsy Dinvil from her booth for Creole Me Up, the first Haitian food processing company in Portland. Founded by Dinvil on August 21st, 2017, Creole Me Up offers authentic Haitian culinary products, including marinades, spreads, salad dressings, pickled vegetables, cocktail mixes, and seasonal specialty items. Each product is allergen-free, plant-based, and packed with flavors that celebrate the diversity and depth of Haitian cuisine. They’re also all made with organic, high-quality ingredients, making Creole Me Up the perfect choice for those in the market for healthy, sustainable food. On celebrating Creole Me Up’s seventh anniversary in August of this year, I had the chance to converse with Dinvil and delve into her inspiring journey, a rollercoaster of challenges and triumphs.

“When I started Creole Me Up, I was homeless, at the bottom,” Dinvil says. “I was paying a person $250 just to sleep on the floor. It was money I didn’t have, so I got kicked out. I felt like a loser because I was in this big country, and I couldn’t even feed myself all the time. For my first products, I used the little money I acquired to buy Mason jars, 12 at a time, at WinCo. At first, I couldn’t afford labels, so I hand-wrote the ingredients on scraps of paper. What sustained me through these challenging times was the image of my mother and the way she worked so hard to put us through school. As a kid, I observed my mother preparing and selling bread. She woke up at 4:00 in the morning to cook, leave us food, and then load that big basket of bread over her head to sell. This image was right in front of my eyes.”

Dinvil was constantly agitated because she didn’t have money. Additionally, she became quite ill with digestive issues, experiencing migraines, headaches, and “a heavy fog” every morning Every other week, she was in an emergency room. “I am the only one in my family here. I didn’t have one person to stand by me during those years,” Dinvil recounts.

One night, Dinvil met a woman who shared her same health issues. This woman referred Dinvil to a naturopathic doctor, who immediately tested Dinvil for food allergies and concluded that many of Dinvil’s favorite foods—such as soy products, cornmeal, and sugar—were the cause of her problems. The naturopath also referred Dinvil to a gastroenterologist, who later performed surgery to repair her digestive tract. After the surgery, Dinvil followed the naturopath’s recommended diet, confirming her desire to create food for people with allergens.

Dinvil found a part-time job as a cashier at the New Seasons Market in Hillsboro, where she met Jaime Soltero from Tamale Boy. She saw his success in his small business and approached him, “Oh my god. This is my dream. I would like to serve Haitian food all over Portland in a truck like this. Without hesitation, he said, ‘If you are serious about what you are saying, I can help you.’ He gave me his card and said I will be traveling, but call me.”

At their first meeting, Soltero bought breakfast and explained everything they would need to do and how he could help Dinvil succeed. He started by letting Dinvil use his kitchen to create her sauces and marinades for free for eight months. Eventually, she did pop-ups in his kitchen at Tamale Boy. After every pop-up, Soltero met with Dinvil to discuss what went well and what could have gone better. He mentored her for those eight months—he was just a guy with a big heart open to help somebody with a dream. “Jaime opened the doors to the food community in Portland,” says Dinvil. “Without Jaime’s help, generosity, commitment, and passion, there wouldn’t be a Creole Me Up today. Nor would I be one of the chefs selected to cook for the Taste for Equity Event this November. Taste of Equity is a volunteer-produced event to celebrate progress and redouble efforts on racial equality and justice in our community.

After leaving Jaime’s kitchen, Dinvil secured enough funds to rent her own space by the hour from the Collective Kitchen in Hillsborough. The owner asked Dinvil if she would like to teach Haitian cuisine. She didn’t answer immediately because she lacked the proper shoes and clothes. Still, without the proper apparel, Dinvil was scheduled to teach Haitian cuisine and has taught for six years in Portland. She now teaches in different venues, doing cooking demonstrations for Slow Food Portland’s Cook First collaborative and at Portland’s Farmers Markets. Dinvil laughs, “I remember that once, I was teaching a group of Intel executives. Suddenly, in my head, a little voice kept telling me to check the back of my skirt. When I looked, I found a big hole in the back of my skirt because it was so old. And I was wearing my friend’s husband’s old tennis shoes teaching these executive guys.” As her teaching responsibilities expanded, Dinvil created a curriculum for her classes. “This is a curriculum I can take anywhere and teach and share with students,” she says. At the same time, she continued making sauces and condiments at the Collective Kitchen. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted her life, and she could no longer access the kitchen.

Eventually, Divil was offered an opportunity to rent a house with a commercial kitchen. But because the owners knew that she had been homeless, Dinvil was not allowed to sleep in the house so that she wouldn’t “become used to living in this space.” Dinvil worked from that kitchen for fi ve years until December 2023, when the refrigerator broke down, and she lost all her inventory. The owners revoked her use of the kitchen and kept her deposit and everything she had left in the kitchen. “So this past year has been the most painful year in my business,” Dinvil says. “I am on square zero rebuilding because I lost everything in that kitchen.”

In January, Dinvil discovered a large lump on her hip that required removal. After the operation, she returned to work at New Seasons too quickly because she feared being broke and homeless again. “Once in a while, I still have a sharp pain when I work or stand for hours because [my hip] hasn’t healed.” At New Seasons, Dinvil learned that she might be eligible for a New Seasons Partner Fund loan, granted to entrepreneurs who can’t get credit or a loan from anywhere else. Sam Masoni of the Food Innovation Center at OSU provided Dinvil with a referral letter, and she was selected for a $10,000 loan. After two years, Dinvil could print labels and buy more than 12 jars at a time. She also purchased much-needed equipment and moved to a commercial kitchen developed by another recipient of the New Seasons Partner Fund loan.

Today, Creole Me Up can be found in seven New Seasons Markets, all the Market of Choice stores, and 15 small markets in Portland. Someone who knew about Dinvil and her products mentioned her to a distributor. She was encouraged to send him some samples, and his excited response was, “What can I do to place your products all over the PNC?” “He says he can place Creole Me Up in forty grocery stores in Seattle. I went up last fall and spent days going from store to store. No one offers the products I sell.” They’ve been talking for two years, but because Dinvil does not have the funds, there is no product in Seattle…yet.

Farmers markets were the first to give her an opportunity to sell her Haitian condiments in Portland. She remains at the Farmers Markets at PSU, Beaverton and Montvilla. When Dinvil began, she would show up with 12 or 24 jars when she could, and people kept coming for more, spreading the word about the products to their neighbors and friends. “They loved my food and wanted to cook like me,” Dinvil says. “So I was making the sauces and helping patrons cook exactly like me.”

While Dinvil always had a vision of the flavors and products she wanted to create, she realized she needed more experience and knowledge to produce them. She decided to return to school. Dinvil has already earned an associate’s degree in food science and is pursuing her MBA at George Fox University— she’s also been contemplating a doctorate. “I’m looking at leadership programs and coaching programs to be equipped for this vision I have in mind,” Dinvil says.

Part of Dinvil’s vision is to support Portland’s houseless population—a goal shaped by Dinvil’s own. Dinvil has organized a drive for houseless women for the last two years. “I encourage my customers and other small vendors to collect panties, toothpaste, toothbrushes, feminine hygiene items, deodorant, lip balms, etc. for the Portland Rescue Mission,” she says. “I want to transform my pain into a beautiful inspiration for these women. I want to look a woman in the eyes and say, ‘You will come out of it.’” In the future, Dinvil hopes to offer business coaching to women coming out of jail, prison, abusive relationships, and houselessness.

Another business goal? Opening a storefront. “I would also like to have my own space that offers families clean and healthy food choices where people can shop and purchase Creole Me Up products,” Dinvil says. “One expense issue that blocks this goal is that we don’t modify our recipes because everything’s getting expensive. The cost of olive oil has doubled. I used to buy it for $94 and now it’s $202 a bottle. But I still need the olive oil. So, I need to sell jars for at least $14 or $16. Otherwise, I won’t be able to maintain the business.”

Recently, Creole Me Up developed a dynamic expansion strategy to extend its reach from Portland to the broader Pacific Northwest and beyond. Dinvil launched her first crowdfunding campaign through the HoneyComb platform, which allows investors to receive a 13% return on their money. While the 30-day campaign has since drawn to a close, you can support Dinvil by buying her products online or at one of the listed farmers markets. Dinvil’s determination and resilience in the face of adversity are inspiring and a testament to her potential as an entrepreneur. Her journey is a compelling narrative of a strong and determined leader.

Dinvil is also the author of two e-books, Cooking with My Mother and When a Zombie Tastes Salt: The Story of a Girl Servant in Haiti. She is working on two new but very dissimilar projects: a book about the plight of young girls in Haiti and a holiday booklet. filled “with 365 proverbs, Haitian proverbs, and Haitian sayings.We are working diligently to put it out around Thanksgiving or Christmas,” Dinvil explains.