ama's the journey
where it started...
Ama’s was born out of love for big flavours and frustration with what was sitting on supermarket shelves.
Chef and author Rachel Ama grew up on food full of rhythm, culture, and care - real Caribbean cooking that makes you want to side step in enjoyment. But every time she looked for sauces that carried that same energy, she found the same story: jars full of preservatives, sugar, and shortcuts. It didn’t taste like what she knew food in the Caribbean tasted like. Or what her family would cook for her growing up. It didn’t taste like love.
Rachel knew Caribbean food deserved better.
Before the sauces, she was already building a community through her cookbooks, YouTube and TV cooking - sharing recipes made with real, whole foods and unapologetic flavour. Her belief has never changed: you shouldn’t have to compromise your health for taste.
Ama’s carries that same spirit in every jar. Deep, rich Caribbean flavour made clean, made properly, and made to make you feel good. Lip-tingling flavour. Big energy. No junk. No shortcuts.
2021 The Spark
Before the jars came the flavour. From Rachel’s kitchen to her cookbooks, YouTube, This Morning, and collabs with Waitrose, Tesco, and Whole Foods - the sauces were already part of her story. She even rolled out a jerk “chikn” food truck for Pip Millett’s show in Islington.
Everywhere she went, people kept asking the same thing:
“Where can I buy these sauces?”It wasn’t a new idea, she’d been dreaming of making them since her first videos in 2017. Now she knew people were ready for it too.
2022 The First Jars
She started small - just her, a kitchen, and hours of graft. Tweaking, tasting, chasing that perfect balance. One batch stopped her in her tracks - rich, rounded, deep heat with real body.
She peeled so much garlic and ginger her fingers burned (never from the scotch bonnets, somehow). But that’s what real cooking looks like: time, patience, and love.
When the first jars of AMA’s went live on Delli Market, they sold out in hours. So she made more - still hand-filled, still made with care, still flying. It wasn’t hype, it was people tasting the difference.
2025 The Mission
By 2025, Rachel had scaled production - still with that same care and created Sticky Miso Jerk alongside her signature Jerk Marinade.
Sticky Miso Jerk didn’t exist before, Rachel made it out of pure love for flavour. She’s obsessed with umami and how it makes food taste alive, so she brought it into the Caribbean world she knows best. It’s not traditional, but it’s true to her cooking: fearless, full of depth, and made to make you say “oh my days, that’s good.”
AMA’s celebrates Caribbean roots and what modern kitchens look like today - bold, flavour obsessed with cultural depth. Every jar gives you that full-bodied taste without a hundred ingredients or hours of prep. The jar does the work so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy.
For Rachel, AMA’s has never just been about sauce. It’s about doing right by Caribbean food - honouring its depth and craft while bringing new flavour stories to the table.
No preservatives. No shortcuts. Just deep, rich, joyful flavour - made properly, for modern kitchens.
