Proud to Be Part of Buy Women Built
Building a business takes courage, belief, resilience and, quite often, a willingness to keep going when the sensible thing might be to stop. For Jerk Centre founder Elka Paquette, the journey has always been about much more than creating great Jamaican sauces. It has been about family, heritage, determination and building something meaningful that can be passed forward.
Becoming part of Buy Women Built feels like a natural and very special chapter in that journey.
What Does Being Part of Buy Women Built Mean to Jerk Centre?
Being part of Buy Women Built gives Jerk Centre the opportunity to stand alongside an inspiring community of female-founded businesses. It represents visibility, encouragement, shared experience and a reminder that when people choose to support women-built brands, they are helping independent businesses, ideas and ambitions grow.
More Than a Badge
For us, being part of Buy Women Built is about far more than displaying a badge on our website.
It is about belonging.
Running a small independent business can sometimes feel like you are trying to solve a hundred different problems at once. You become the creator, organiser, salesperson, problem solver, marketer, packer and everything else in between.
That is why being surrounded by a wider community of women who understand what it takes to build something from an idea is so rewarding.
Every business may have a different story, product or purpose, but there is something incredibly powerful about knowing that other women are walking their own version of that same road.
For Jerk Centre, membership represents community over competition and the belief that there is room for all of us to succeed.
Why Supporting Women-Built Businesses Matters
Every purchase from an independent business means something.
Behind the bottle, box, website or product is usually a person who took a chance on an idea and decided to build it.
Supporting women-built businesses helps those ideas become sustainable businesses. It helps founders employ people, work with other independent companies, develop new products and create opportunities that may not otherwise have existed.
But support does not always have to mean buying something.
It can mean recommending a business to a friend. Sharing a post. Leaving a review. Introducing two people who might be able to work together. Offering advice. Making space at the table.
Those small actions can have a surprisingly big effect.
That sense of connection is one of the things we value most about being part of Buy Women Built. It shines a light on businesses that deserve to be discovered while encouraging people to think about the story behind the brands they choose.
Built by a Woman. Inspired by Generations.
Jerk Centre may be women-built, but it has never been built by one person alone.
Behind our sauces are generations of influence, family members who helped along the way, customers who took a chance on their first bottle, retailers who put Jerk Centre on their shelves, businesses that opened doors for us and people who simply told somebody else, “You need to try this.”
We remember all of them.
And as Jerk Centre grows, we want to do the same for others.
We want to connect with other female founders, Black-owned businesses, independent retailers, event organisers, creators and brands who believe that collaboration can create something better than any of us could produce alone.
Being part of Buy Women Built is therefore not simply something we are proud to announce.
It represents what we believe in.
Build something you believe in. Remember where you came from. Support people coming up beside you. And wherever possible, leave the door open for the person coming behind you.
A Word From Elka
“Being part of Buy Women Built means a great deal to me because you realise that behind every business is a woman with her own story of taking chances, overcoming setbacks and refusing to give up on something she believes in. Jerk Centre was built from my family’s love of food, Jamaican heritage and a lot of hard work. To now stand alongside so many other women who have built something of their own makes me incredibly proud. If we can support, encourage and open doors for one another along the way, then everybody becomes stronger.”
— Elka Paquette, Founder of Jerk Centre
