Meet Zein and Farida Mangalji | Co-founders of Clarified Living

We had the good fortune of connecting with Zein and Farida Mangalji and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Zein and Farida, what do you attribute your success to?
It all begins with passion. If you are passionate about something you will inherently work hard and remain focused and committed to your success and the company’s success. It is also important to always keep reminding yourself why you started the business. For our team at Clarified Living, we created a product and a brand that we wanted to share with every household. We felt that our flavored GHEE! would inspire everyone to cook healthier without compromising on tasty cooking options. The flavors and the consistency of our product sets us apart —that is what is behind our success at Clarified Living.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
To start with, GHEE! by Clarified Living is a Texas based, 100 percent women owned business. One of the things that sets us apart is that we are a multi-generational and multi-ethnic company. My mother has passed on a recipe from generations ago and we have since added a few local flavors. So now our flavored GHEE! can be used in all types of foods and cooking. Most people think that you can only use ghee in Indian cooking which is a common misconception. By adding a variety of flavors to the original recipe, we have been able to reach a wider variety of cooking enthusiasts. We listened to, and responded to the suggestions of our customers, who now use our flavored GHEE! for making pancakes (with our Cinnamon/Vanilla GHEE!) to making the perfect salmon filet (using our Garlic GHEE!). What sets our GHEE! apart from others, first and foremost, is the consistency of our quality. We are relentless when it comes to quality control. Secondly, we are very proud of the variety of flavors we developed. We did it so that it could be used in cooking a wide variety of cuisines. We want every household to try our GHEE!, no matter what is on the menu. It’s a healthier alternative to anything else being used. And lastly, we listen very carefully to our customers. We encourage feedback and take it very seriously, which is why we have a high percentage of repeat customers.
Was it easy to start a new business? Well, the food business is never easy and frankly, it shouldn’t be. But going back to what we first discussed, if there is passion followed by hard work, the rest will fall into place in due course. Our team is made of four strong women who have well over 100 cumulative years of experience in running a variety of businesses, from hotels to real estate to interior design to chalk paints and stains. What we know very well is this……………take care of your customers and they will reward you.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Ah. That’s easy and isn’t really a hypothetical question for me. I recently had a very dear friend visit from Amsterdam, and I was determined to show her the best of Texas! So, we started in Houston with a visit to my favorite spa—The Houstonian Spa. A relaxing day which included an hour long massage, a facial, and a light lunch. We followed that with a visit to the Arboretum and a drive through the Memorial Park area. . She was amazed to learn that Houston has an extremely vibrant Theatre scene, which includes the Ballet, Opera and Symphony. In the evening we began with a few cocktails at a couple of bars in Rice Village, followed by dinner at Potente downtown. For the next couple of days, I tried to get her to sample our extensive ethnic cuisine options, which included Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Japanese and Indian/Pakistani food. Lots of choices!!

And then it was time to head to Dallas. Clarified Living has a strong presence in the DFW area and is home to one of the four owners of our little company, so I managed to combine business with pleasure. With only one night to spend there, my business partner Staci and our colleague Kayla insisted that I take my friend to the Deep Ellum district, which is rich in culture and history. That was a great suggestion. We started at Vidorra with food and margaritas and ended the night with the music scene at a few of the bars—Off The Record was one of the bars. It was the perfect way to end our night in Dallas. In an attempt to squeeze every last drop from the amazing week we’d had, we stayed until the bars started turning off the lights!

I saved one final culinary experience back in Houston. Our last night in Texas—we had to have barbeque! Goode Company barbecue is the best in town!! . The brisket and ribs were incredible! We ordered more food than we could eat, which meant there were leftovers for a midnight snack for her final night in Houston.

When my friend returned to Amsterdam and called me a couple of days later to thank me, she said she was amazed at how rich in diversity Texas is and said in all her travels she had never seen so much range in cuisine choices. I told her we had barely scratched the surface. Texas is larger in size than several European countries and there were so many other places to see……..a second visit is imminent!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My mother is the inspiration and co-founder/co-creator of GHEE! by Clarified Living. Above all else, she is mom! Not just to me and my siblings, but to our friends as well. Her kitchen was always home to so many people. I would like to give her a Shout Out! My mother has always been my role model–she worked full time running her own businesses, raised 3 children and always made time for her family and her friends—she was and is a real-life Superwoman! Mom has been instrumental in creating the flavors and consistency of our GHEE! at Clarified Living. Since she was a young child she took a keen interest in cooking and was very good at it. She made her own ghee at home and used it in cooking for her grandmother and mother. After I survived breast cancer in 2010, I remember asking my mom to teach me how to cook healthier. She would make ghee at home and taught me how to use it to cook the healthy options I required during a very trying time in my life. I started using her ghee in ALL my cooking, substituting it for the oils or butters I had previously been using. So fast forward to 2020, when we were at a large family gathering discussing the health benefits of ghee. It was a surprise to so many. Our close family friends Maryl Georgi and Staci Belew were genuinely interested in learning more and we talked for hours about the topic. By the end of that day, Maryl, Staci, my mother and I decided on the idea of manufacturing high quality flavored ghee! And GHEE! by Clarified Living was created!!

Website: www.clarifiedliving.com

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