SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA – Elliot Sharifi’s career change started with a Google search.
“In 2017 I was a 26-year-old in finance in downtown SF, fed up with corporate life, and I Googled ‘how to start a food business in SF,'” Sharifi wrote in a message to Bay Area Telegraph. “I quit my job, found a shared kitchen, and started making hummus.”
Nearly a decade later, that decision has grown into Obour Foods, a San Francisco-based business whose glass jars have found their way to farmers markets across the East Bay.
For shoppers in San Ramon and Pleasanton, it’s a business they can taste every Saturday.
From spreadsheets to hummus
Before Obour, Sharifi worked as a corporate financial analyst at Hewlett-Packard and on HotelTonight’s finance team. In an earlier interview with food-recovery organization Replate, he described days spent staring at spreadsheets and financial models.
Cooking offered something more satisfying. His family maintained its Persian roots through food, although hummus itself was not a traditional part of those family meals. The business idea came partly from buying supermarket hummus and repeatedly finding it disappointing.
He thought he could make something better.
Obour’s company history lists its first farmers market stand in May 2018 and the opening of its Ferry Building shop in 2021.
Today, Sharifi says, the business has its own kitchen in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood and sells at 25 farmers markets every weekend, stretching from the Bay Area to Sacramento. It also stocks branded fridges at more than 70 breweries, taprooms and wine tasting rooms across California and Nevada.
“Bootstrapped the whole way to seven figures,” he wrote.
Staying regional is the point
For Sharifi, the next step doesn’t have to mean getting Obour onto every supermarket shelf in America.
“Staying this size is a choice,” he wrote. “We’d rather be the regional food business dedicated to quality than be on every shelf in the country.”
The company’s approach puts much of the work inside its own kitchen: soaking organic chickpeas overnight, grinding tahini and using organic lemon juice.
Its original flavor, Hot Curry, remains in the current six-flavor hummus lineup, alongside Classic, Red Beet, Black Bean, Zhoug and Berbere.
Here at the Bay Area Telegraph, we tried one of their garlicky hummus flavors at the Ferry Building and often see their products on sale at local markets.
Where to try it
Sharifi confirmed that Obour brings its products to the San Ramon and Pleasanton farmers markets every Saturday. Its published market schedule lists both from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., along with a Saturday stop in Pleasant Hill.
Other listed East Bay appearances include Oakland’s Grand Lake market, downtown Berkeley and Sunday markets in Kensington and West Oakland. Check the company’s schedule before making a special trip.
Sharifi’s invitation to local shoppers is straightforward.
“If it’s easier, come by our stand at the San Ramon farmers market on a Saturday morning and taste it first,” he wrote.
