Ajoa Mintah (BASc’01) combines her love of engineering with her love of food and the community in perfect harmony with her business, Four All Ice Cream, a sustainable ice cream parlour and wholesaler that sources the freshest ingredients from local Waterloo Region farmers.
“I needed to create my own opportunities,” Mintah stated as she explained why she took the leap and left her engineering job in industrial consulting to become an entrepreneur. “I left with no plan but I knew where I wanted to go,” Mintah smiled as she said.
She explained, “It’s easy to say but harder to do,” and “it’s risky,” but she encourages people to chase their dreams, “you owe it to yourself to live your best life, to be brave.” Mintah humbly continued, “What I want people to always understand is that I had a safety net. Yes, I was brave but I had a great foundation to fall back on.”
Having a foundation in chemical engineering gives Mintah a unique perspective on the process. She stated that her academic experience assists her everyday, “Just having the ability to look at a problem. Set an objective and take steps towards solving it,” is a big part of how Four All Ice Cream operates. Mintah stated confidently, “It may or may not work but I want to put my best effort forward,” and simply asked: “What’s next?”
Before launching Four All Ice Cream, Mintah spent six months studying, planning, and researching. “I don’t want to guess that it’s going to work. There is a lot of science behind what ice cream is. It’s a waste of time to randomly put things together,” Mintah explained.
This growth mindset shows in the success of Four All Ice Cream which opened a new location in Uptown Waterloo in March 2020, at the beginning of the lockdown. Since then, the business has pivoted to online sales and has grown despite these difficult circumstances. “There are a lot of entrepreneurs in Waterloo. This is a community that appreciates entrepreneurship. This is a space I would love to be in,” Mintah remarked on the supportive community in Waterloo Region. “One of things I love about Waterloo Region, ten minutes in any direction, I’m at a farm and find the freshest of fresh food.”
Mintah’s business has three main pillars, “Natural, Local, and Mindful”. She focuses on sourcing local ingredients thus helping the cause, building back better, together.
“Here in this community, there’s great food, there’s great people, there’s great farmers and I wanted to work with these people.”
If you have never been to Four All Ice Cream before, they have 16 flavours available at all times, ranging from crowd pleasers like ‘Classic Vanilla’ to exclusive specialities like ‘Maple Creme Brulee’. Four All Ice Cream offers vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free ice creams to cater to all different tastes and diets.
Ajoa Mintah (BASc’01) brings together chemical engineering, entrepreneurship, community, and passion into a beautiful and tasty mixture that we can all enjoy.
“This is the path I want to take. Apply everything I’ve learned so far to create something great.
I didn’t set out to conquer the world and I wasn’t sure if I could do this. But I wanted to give it my every effort to keep going and try to succeed”.
“Ice cream is for year round. Ice cream is for so many different occasions. If you’re happy; ice cream. If you’re sad, ice cream. It’s something that brings people together,” Mintah concluded.
