Ayman Sulaiman did not come from wealth. He created a business that in 2009 did almost $30 million. He is a niche retailer who has launched a wholesale food business that sources California products. He is creating jobs in California.
His retail niche is WIC-only retailing, a category that he pioneered. WIC stands for Women Infant and Children, the name of a state-based nutrition program to ensure the mothers and babies get proper food. The goal of healthy babies is universally applauded but the program carries a stigma in the eyes of some. In fact, the stigma led to Sulaiman's multi-million dollar company.
"In 1993 my daughter was born. I was in school," Sulaiman said. "I was trying to improve our lives and build for the future. But we didn't have much at that time. Our family was a participant in the WIC program. My wife was born and raised in SF and worked for BART."
"I came home one day and on the table were some WIC vouchers. I didn't know what these vouchers were. All of them were expired. She broke into tears and said to me that this is humiliating. 'They treat me like garbage and a second class citizen', she said. 'I didn't want to go through that.'"
"I decided to go with her to the store. At the time we shopped at a CALA food store in San Francisco. When we showed the vouchers the cashier's attitude changed 180 degrees." "'Why are you treating us like this,' I asked her. 'I work and I have a job and am going to school.' She called the manager after I spoke to her." "His exact words were: 'Sir, if you don't like it, go somewhere else.' I started telling him off. I promised him I would put him out of business." "He laughed and I moved on." Sulaiman got a job in Silicon Valley that he disliked. His wife was pregnant with their second child. Before the due date he stopped by a flower shop to buy her flowers. He walked into the store and the proprietress helped him with a flower arrangement. The shop was right by general hospital and near the WIC clinic where people obtained the vouchers. He had heard her store was for sale and asked her about it. She said it was. "I gave her a check for $5000 and made a handwritten agreement. I went to the bank and got a cashier's check and come back and bought the whole flower shop. I went back home and told my wife that I was going to open a WIC-only store where people could shop without the attitude from the grocery stores. She said I was out of my mind. That was the beginning of my journey." Within less than two years he put CALA of business at the location that had mistreated them. It turned out that the store relied on WIC customers as a base and without them they couldn't survive. "That store and the stores that replace them at that location continually go out of business," Sulaiman said. His retail operation was named Baby Nutritional Care. Sulaiman soon expanded to Stockton. "In the beginning, in the first ten years of my journey, most places had no clue what WIC is," Sulaiman said. "They had no category for it. In the beginning they tried to classify us as a grocery store, a market, or a liquor store. We are a category of our own." Among those who understood, was the City of Stockton. "The City of Stockton stepped in and gave us a use permit with conditional use," Sulaiman said. "The city of Stockton was the pioneer. We are now 11 years in Stockton, with one location on Precisi Lane and one on Hunter Street. The City of Stockton has always been gracious and helpful." He continued to expand and his stores are primarily in Northern California, from Santa Rosa to Bakersfield. Once Sulaiman established the concept of a WIC-only store there were sure to be copy- cats. "Copy-cats? Of course, they are coming along," Sulaiman said. "That is the American spirit, everyone jumps into a new business opportunity. What do you do? You can't beat them all, so I decided to join them. I established the co-op part of the company. That provides them with a turn-key solution to operating a WIC store." Sulaiman invested in and developed software for WIC stores. His proprietary software became in 2003 one of the first cloud applications. His software resides on servers in a remote location. The reason it worked was that the cost of stand-alone software was so high it was difficult for new store owners to afford. "This was another reason to start the co-op. I would help them set up their stores and let them use our software free in return for their membership in our co-op and buying from our warehouse," Sulaiman said. Baby Nutritional Care is the largest WIC-only operation in northern California. On a per item basis they turn more product than Savemart, Safeway, and Food For Less. Dave Douglas, who is now Sales Manager for Sulaiman's other business, NCS Wholesale, was with Hansens, the national juice company. He noticed that his customers like Safeway and Savemart were selling less and less juice while his WIC client was doubling his orders. "This was part of a trend where alternative channels were growing," Douglas said. "Grocery chains are losing volume in certain categories: pet food to Petsmart. Paper goods to WalMart, specialty foods to Trader Joe's." Douglas had an epiphany. He saw that Ayman Sulaiman was the Trader Joe's of WIC. "He (Sulaiman) was frustrated by his inability to get a good price from the national brands on baby food," Douglas said. "I had a long term relationship with the manufacturers and we found a way to produce our own baby food. The first Early On brand goes in June. Then milk and bread." "The idea behind the label is that you can think locally and act globally," Sulaiman said. "Everyone is complaining about the economy. Why buy Gerber from New York? Why don't we get someone to manufacture in California creating California jobs? Dave understood exactly what I was thinking. You can't work with the state of California and not be socially responsible." "We need 100 percent made in California. We found a manufacturer in Sanger. They agreed and that is beginning. Our cereals will be made in San Dimas. Milk and bread in Richmond. We are sourcing our Early On products in California." Everyone is programmed with Gerber and Beechnut. That is the challenge. We are taking on the bear. We reached out to Food for Less," Douglas explained. "Sure enough, Chris Podesta in Food for Less in Stockton took the lead. The idea of made in California inspired them to jump on board. They understood the value. They understood the partnering and keeping jobs here. They were a leader." The Early On product has bi-lingual labeling, both ingredients and instructions. American states spend $7 billion on WIC. Fourteen percent of Americans are on food stamps. Manufacturers would be foolish not to be serving the food stamps or WIC customer. They are a huge piece of the business. This is a change in the paradigm to feeding people rather than selling groceries, according to Douglas.

When his daughter was an infant, Ayman Sulaiman came home one day to find expired vouchers from the federally funded Women, Infants and Children program. When he asked his wife about them, she cried and explained the humiliation she experienced at their local grocery store when trying to take advantage of the supplemental nutrition program. It was 1993, the couple lived and worked in San Francisco, and Sulaiman was attending college. He accompanied his wife to the store and witnessed what he said was unfair treatment from both the clerk and manager, but the business-savvy college student saw a huge need for stores that catered to the families and children served by WIC. "It was just degrading," said Sulaiman, who studied computer science at UC Berkeley and Heald College and worked in Silicon Valley. "I knew that I was doing my best to improve our lives, and everyone was staring at us. I knew there was a niche for WIC clients at that point." WIC provides a variety of food staples each month to low-income and working-class pregnant or breast-feeding women, infants and children under age 5 who are not meeting certain nutritional guidelines. It started in 1972 when the federal government recognized that low-income women and children were suffering from malnutrition and began to supplement food stamps. Today, Sulaiman leads the largest co-op of WIC specialty stores in Northern California, with 45 stores under the Baby Nutritional Care name and double that number helping smaller neighborhood WIC markets that were struggling with marketing, operations and inventory.
That number will grow with a store opening in Brentwood this week and openings in Vallejo, Richmond, Hayward and San Pablo later this summer.

Sulaiman's first store was an old San Francisco flower shop that he bought on a whim more than a decade ago for $5,000 while getting a bouquet for his wife, who was pregnant with their second child. In a few years, he put the store where he and his wife were mistreated out of business with their first WIC store, and started opening stores in Stockton, where he said the city was always supportive and helpful. Today, at least 60 percent of vouchers statewide are redeemed at WIC specialty stores instead of general grocery stores or big-box retailers that also carry food through the governmental program. "We help the consumer to be educated on WIC-approved items," said Sulaiman's business partner, Dave Douglas. "Getting a WIC voucher is like getting a prescription. It is important that we source products that meet the WIC standards." The Baby Nutritional Care stores aim to make the shopping experience less stressful and more pleasant for WIC clients by hiring bilingual and knowledgeable staff who know the WIC guidelines, carrying all or most of the WIC-approved food items, and catering primarily to WIC clients. WIC clients say they often face rude comments, stares and scrutiny from both customers and employees in traditional grocery locations in addition to poor customer service and ignorance about the WIC program. Antioch resident Raquel Cardenas works at the Pittsburg store and knows the ins and outs of WIC as a recipient for her 3-year-old daughter. The 21-year-old recalled one shopping experience when she selected the wrong baby formula and had to return to the traditional grocery store for an exchange. "The clerk was so rude, and she wouldn't exchange it for me," she said. "That is why people really like it here. We are polite. A lot of guys come in here too because we help them out, and we are helpful." Cardenas said customers come all the way from Brentwood for quality customer service and a quick checkout. Amid the seasonal fruit and whole-grain options are ethnic food items, including tofu, black-eyed peas and various beans and lentils. "This is the best thing ever," said Pittsburg resident Monique Smith, who is raising her 3-year-old grandson and receives WIC to supplement their groceries. "It is much more convenient than a grocery store. They take too long to ring up your items at a grocery store, and they don't know enough about WIC." The chain also tries to make the shopping experience easier for parents and fun for children, with cartoon characters on the walls, free candy and play areas. Amid the Gerber cereals and baby food in these stores is the Early On brand, an all-natural and preservative-free baby food line created by Baby Nutritional Care. The gluten-free, certified kosher baby food was launched last year, and is now also sold in Food 4 Less stores. "We pack from fresh fruit. Most national brands are packed from puree," said Douglas, who previously worked for Hansen Beverage Company. The Early On brand started more than a year ago with baby food and will expand with next month's launch of a handful of dry cereals and oatmeal, followed by bread, milk and cheese later this year. "We are the Whole Foods or Trader Joes of WIC," Sulaiman said.

The baby food is made with California produce; the milk will be packed in Richmond; the company's main distribution center is in Manteca; and most of the other products are manufactured in the state as well. Sulaiman is proud to be producing jobs in a down economy throughout California, and he now calls the Central Valley home as a resident of Ripon. Baby Nutritional Care hopes to garner the same type of brand loyalty with the Early On label as brands such as Gerber and Beech Nut. "Our strategy is that a person on WIC won't be on WIC forever" Sulaiman said.

Customers at Baby Nutritional Care stores also receive additional products when they obtain the Early On brand through clever packaging based on the WIC item limits. Sulaiman also intentionally situates many of his stores near WIC offices and public transportation for convenience. "We now have a five-year plan to make our stores synonymous with WIC," he said. "It has been an amazing journey."

STORE LOCATIONS
Baby Nutritional Care
East Bay locations
3025 Foothill Blvd., Oakland
2630 International Blvd., Oakland
900 Market St. # A, Oakland
7351 Brentwood Blvd., Suite F, Brentwood
2344 Stanwell Circle, Concord
1295 E. Leland Road, Pittsburg
32970 Alvarado Niles Road #752, Union City
39180 State St., Fremont
917 North Central Ave., Tracy

Businessman Ayman Sulaiman officially launched his Early On line of foods aimed at the WIC market June 22 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the company's new Manteca warehouse.
The line, which includes dairy, cereals, canned fruit and peanut butter will be distributed throughout California at WIC-only stores Baby Nutritional Care and at independent grocery stores.

Early On's vice president of sales and marketing, Dave Douglas, who used to work for Hansen's juice company, said he is excited about providing a brand specifically for the state administered Women, Infant and Children program.

About 66 percent of children in California are on the WIC program.

"I always say, 'I used to sell groceries. Now I'm feeding people,'" Douglas said.

Early On foods are grown or made in California.
The company's aims are to create more jobs for California workers and to reduce the cost of feeding needy families in the state.