“I am just a normal kid, not a superstar.”
He has his own award-winning dip and snacks company, his food show just premiered on BBC and still manages to tune out all distractions to focus on homework. So, how did a 12-year-old boy achieve to move up expeditiously the corporate ladder?
Wearing a bright salmon sweater and a cheeky smile, he is astonishingly confident as he is weighing a bowl of jackfruit in his well-lit kitchen in Peckham, South London. He has just finished filming of his own show, which premiered last Sunday on BBC.
Twelve-year-old Omari McQueen has been making waves in the food industry since 2018, when he launched his award-winning online vegan business, Dipalicious.
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On the online shop someone can find a selection of dips, juice packs, seasonings and snacks, including pizza fingers.
Cooking has always been a family affair for the McQueens.
The schoolboy discovered his passion in cooking when he was just seven years old after his bus driver father taught him and his older brother to cook while his mother was struck by migraines which rendered her unable to move: “My father was working long hours, so I had to cook for the family. I was experimenting at first, but then I got into more vegan recipes.”
“My brother, who wants to become a director had an idea to make videos while I was cooking. And that’s how it all started with me standing in front of a camera,” he said with a perceptible snicker in his voice.
Then turning to his mother, who was seated in the living room, revealed that her favourite dip is the curry jackfruit.
Omari’s passion grew stronger as he soon began creating almost every day his meals for the family to enjoy.
Leah, a mother of six, remembered the first time Omari handed her a meal he had cooked himself revealing the idea of creating his own venture: “At first I was confused, but then after a school trip he came back to home and said he did not want to work for anybody and he wanted to start his own business based on the dips he cooked. He wanted to sell his dips.”
Credit: Dimitris Mavrokefalidis
She said the first step she took was to sign him up to a children business fair, an eight-hour event where he managed to sell out in the first hour and a half: “At this very moment I realised that he’d got something there.” A string of other similarly successful events, which followed that baptism of fire made her ask him again if he wanted to be a businessman.
“I already knew that this thing is what I wanted to do from the very first second of cooking,” he said with the start of what appeared to be a suppressed giggle.
His family sorted all the business details, including the label of the company, the packaging, the leaflets.
The young chef and entrepreneur launched even a pop-up restaurant in Boxpark food market in Croydon. But how does it feel to be the ‘UK’s youngest restaurateur’?
He hesitated for a concise moment and just seconds after that he said: “It is fun and exciting. People love my food and I like when they come to taste my snacks.”
He recalled one specific customer that was coming every single day to buy his food: “I was surprised, and I asked my mom why this person was coming so often, and if she had so many children that she needed to feed. And she replied no, she just likes your food.”
He immediately added that he feels happy when he receives feedback from a customer or a viewer of his online videos.
Credit: Dipalicious/Facebook
His mother admitted with a laugh that recently a school sent him over thirty letters with questions to be answered by Omari.
Omari’s eyes were glued to his mother as she was describing the ‘shocking moment’ and the award his son received in recognition of being a vegan chef and a youth empowerment speaker encouraging other children to become entrepreneurs. She said that award made him cry.
“I am just a normal kid. I am not a superstar” he said to show that despite what is happening, he already knows how to look at the brighter side of things.
With the support of his mother, Leah and his father, Jermaine, he set up his own YouTube channel called Omari Goes Wild.
The channel kicked off with Omari cooking his own vegan pizza. At that point, he felt that the pizza was too dry and didn’t know if Heinz tomato sauce was vegan, so he made his first dip the Caribbean kick.
In these videos, he presents plant-based meals while chatting about the benefits of a healthy vegan diet and alternatives to non-vegan options like curry goat, a staple dish in Southeast Asian cuisine prepared with goat meat.
Credit: Dipalicious/Facebook
Leah McQueen said she is still helping him with the business side of things, although he is also good at connecting with potential leads: “Just for his 10th birthday I gave him access to my LinkedIn profile, and he managed himself to contact journalists and businessmen for collaboration. He has made many connections there.”
But he is not allowed to navigate social media world by himself: “I told him, you can have social media, but I have to read all the messages, and you are not allowed to post anything if I don’t see it first. He is not also allowed to reply to other people unless I see it.”
But how easy is to maintain a balance between limelight and a typical routine of a schoolboy?
Omari replied with a degree of thoughtfulness and care that could surprise even the biggest sceptic of a kid entrepreneur: “She gave me some rules, and I have one above all. She told me to stay humble, be myself, and flaws will make me unique. She told me that outside there would be people that will see me as a celebrity, but inside this house, I am just like anyone else.”
He finally said, with an almost audible rise of protest in his voice: “I follow these rules, and at the same time I am so excited with my new show, we are filming in the kitchen of our home.
Credit: Dimitris Mavrokefalidis
“What I like about cooking is the chance that it gives me to experiment and inspire other people to try things that they haven’t tried yet.”
He said he has already finished his first recipe book which will be out in January.
He also revealed his dream is to open not a conventional restaurant but a food bus: “My dad will drive, and I will be able to cook and travel all around the world to offer my snacks and dips.”