Keya Wingfield was bewildered by the sight of an oven when she moved to Virginia. She didn’t know what it was. “I thought it was a storage box,” says the Bombay, India, native, explaining that ovens aren’t prevalent in India.
While some would see that lack of knowledge as a deterrent, Keya saw it as an opportunity. “Keya is a take-the-bull-by-the-horns kind of person,” says her husband David Wingfield. “I would come home, and she had made a quiche. She made a pecan pie. She approached baking the same as everything she does in life.”
The success of her short trial-and-error phase sparked her love of baking, and that is how her business, Daksh Foods (doing business as Keya & Co.), started.
A graduate of J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College (now known as Reynolds Community College) with a degree in pastry and culinary arts, Keya not only learned to bake at a professional level but was also named the winner of the 2021 Food Network Spring Baking Championship.
Promoting Indian Culture Through Food
Keya’s penchant for both cooking and business is an outgrowth of her family’s interests. Both of her parents served as major inspirations in her life. “My mom was a stellar home cook. She touched thousands and thousands of people through her food,” Keya says. “My dad was a businessman. I honor them both by running a food business. I get it from them!”
Growing up in Bombay, Keya had varied interests – everything from English and literature to art and publishing. After she graduated from National College in Bombay, she turned to the business world, working in sales to U.S. customers at a Circuit City call center in Bombay. “I have always been a workhorse, a street-smart person,” she says. “I’m always on the hustle and the move, always trying to find the next thing to work on.”
That type of drive helped her advance to a trainer position, where she worked very closely with Circuit City’s corporate office in Richmond. That’s where she met her husband and the two started a long-distance relationship. “I used to work with David’s boss pretty often,” she says. “David would keep interjecting in our conversations. We started to talk and realized we were pretty compatible.”
The two became good friends. David was instantly intrigued by Keya’s sense of humor. “I had been to India before, but we really didn’t talk that much when I was there,” he says.
When Circuit City realized the two were becoming more than friends, the company let Keya go. The next day David called and asked her if he had gotten her fired. “I made up my mind to keep her in my life so I asked, ‘do you want to get married?’ I proposed over the phone and about a month later I went to India to meet her family, and she came to the U.S. five months later.” The couple married in 2005.
Moving to Richmond was a culture shock for Keya, who characterizes Bombay as New York on steroids. “I was lost in Richmond. It has a much slower lifestyle than I was used to,” she says. “I had a hard time the first few years.”
The first year after marrying David, Keya spent time getting to know people in the area. After obtaining her work visa, she did odd jobs. But her interest in baking never waned. Because of her mother’s fondness for cooking, Keya associates food with love, and that makes it more personal to her.
In 2010, she founded Candy Valley Cake Company, a custom dessert studio that has since been folded into Keya & Co. “We make custom made-to-order desserts,” she says, adding that she makes cakes for individuals and companies in the Richmond area and beyond.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Keya was forced to pivot. She started making modern Indian/American meals that included some of her homemade chips as a side.
The idea for the chips grew from her failed attempts to get her husband to try her native cuisine. “I was not familiar with Indian food,” says David, who was hesitant about trying something new. “She made up a blend of spices and put it on potato chips for me. I said to her, ‘this is something I like.’”
It wasn’t long before customers started calling Keya asking for the chips. Her line of snacks was the end result of those first inquiries. She launched with two flavors: Black Salt and Bombay Spice with 29 spices.
Starting the line was not intentional, she says. “It was accidental. I had to learn about distribution and how to make [the items] shelf stable.”
A Time of Joy and a Time of Devastation
A branding powerhouse, Keya is social media savvy with accounts on YouTube and Instagram. That’s how the Food Network found Keya and subsequently asked her to be a contestant on its 2021 Spring Baking Championship.
Participating in the show was rough for Keya who was four months pregnant at the time. “I remember the show runner telling me that this show is a marathon, and if you make it to episode four or five, that’s when the challenge sets in. You’ll be very tired by then, and if you can push through and persevere, then you have a chance to go all the way,” Keya says. “I took that to heart, and sure enough, by episode five, I was exhausted. But I persevered and remembered her wise words.”
For her final cake, Keya was asked to channel a favorite childhood memory. “I thought of a time my brother and I used to hang out on this park bench eating ice cream,” she says. “So, I made this garden-themed ice cream cake. The ice cream was Cassata ice cream, an iconic Indian ice cream, made up of three flavors.”
She feels she learned a lot about herself during her weeks on the show. “The show kind of taught me the boundaries I can push,” she says. “It was a true test of grit and determination.”
David believes his wife’s appearance on the Food Network was inevitable. “I’m extremely happy for her. I told her, ‘go out there and win it all.’ I wasn’t surprised that she won by any means.”
While her win on the Food Network brought extreme joy, a few months later Keya faced every parent’s worst nightmare. Her infant son Daksh was born with a very rare genetic condition. He had only a single gene out of place, but that abnormality caused Daksh not to be able to breathe on his own without assistance, which sadly led to his death.
“There was no cure or gene replacement therapy that could have saved his life,” Keya says. “I will never not be dealing with that loss. Losing him has changed me in ways I cannot describe. It’s a life sentence and a singular hell.”
However, she realizes that she can’t let the loss consume her. She’s also a mom to 6-year-old Uma, who was 2.5 years old when Daksh passed. “I owe my daughter. She deserves a healthy mom, and I poured myself into that,” she says. “Unbeknownst to Uma, she saved my life. Her smile keeps me alive.”
When it came time to name her snack company, Keya chose her son’s name. “It’s how I honor his memory,” she says.
Collaborating and Expanding
Keya started distribution of her snacks in August 2021, placing the bags of chips at her first location, Ellwood Thompson. “We didn’t quite absorb it all when it happened. It didn’t register for a long time – not until this year when we relaunched with new professional packing,” she says. “Now, it’s more surreal than before.”
Keya is now working with a co-packer that produces larger quantities of the snacks for the company. “We made [the snacks] by hand until last year,” she says. “We are now in 84 stores, mostly in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. We are also in about 25 stores around the country, mostly specialty stores, natural stores, cafés, wineries, and breweries.”
Keya loves creating brand collaborations. She has worked with McDonald’s, Hamilton Beach, GoGo squeeZ, Richmond and Virginia tourism, as well as Duke’s Mayonnaise. “I created recipes for some, content for some – all with my cultural point of view intact,” she says.
One of her most fun collaborations was with the reality series The Real Housewives of Potomac on the Bravo channel. “[One of the cast members] Karen Huger used to order cakes from me all the time. One of those orders was for her mother’s birthday, and the day before the cake was due, I got a call from their production company that they would like to film the cake pick up,” Keya says. “They completely rearranged my studio, and it took hours. It was incredible to watch their team.”
Always looking for new sales opportunities, Keya travels to different states to talk with vendors and venues. She travels to India for spices that she uses to make her special blend. “There are certain spices you can only buy or grow in India, like dry mango powder,” she says. “There are also certain types of turmeric and saffron [that you can only get in India].”
Keya’s strengths are rooted in her perseverance, courage, transparency, and true connection with community. “My audience has front row seats to my life as a woman of color, an immigrant, a mother, an entrepreneur, and as someone who has dealt with deep loss,” she says.
Her friend Linzy George, whom Keya met through a social group of Indian women, respects Keya’s grace and resilience. “When anything happens that other people see as a mountain, she sees it as just a bump in the road,” George says. “She believes that dreams are attainable.”
George is also witness to Keya’s desire to empower other women, noting that she often tells women and girls that they are free to do whatever they want to do.
A self-proclaimed workaholic, Keya says she does well under pressure. “I enjoy staying busy,” she says. “I’m also always learning. I like the fact that I get the opportunity and privilege to build a dream. I love that I can set that example for my daughter. We are building community here with what we bring to the table.”
Her future dreams for her company include expanding across multiple categories and building “a brand that not only my consumers deserve but also trust,” she says. “Ten years from now, we hope to be a household pantry item.”
Lee Kuykendall, brand strategy manager at Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches, has served as a mentor for Keya and her business. “She is a brilliant advocate for herself and her culture. I am not surprised at her success. I tell her she is only just starting,” he says. “She will be wildly successful in the long term.”
Keya’s daughter knows what her mother does for a living and thinks she is a “big shot celebrity” because of her appearances on television, Keya says, adding that starting the company is helping her daughter see what women can bring to the table.
If there’s one thing Keya has learned over the past few years, it’s to always lean into your instincts and have utmost faith in yourself. She would tell other women who are thinking of starting a company to leap and a net will appear.
“You get one life. Live it to its fullest. Have unshakeable faith in yourself,” Keya says.
