How A 22-Year-Old Landed The ‘World’s Creamiest Hummus,’ Habiza, On Target Shelves

Not many people take pride in getting straight D’s in high school. But Jonathan Srour, founder of Habiza Hummus, has his own distinct way of seeing things.

He was eager to begin his entrepreneurial journey as quickly as he could, taking his Lebanese great grandmother’s hummus recipe and scaling it for Americans to have a real taste of the Middle East. “Tradition is our innovation,” Srour tells me. “We’re not making hummus; we’re making hoummus.”

After years of unlocking the formula for what the 22-year-old boldly describes on his containers as ‘the world’s creamiest hummus,’ Habiza is about to make its debut on Target shelves up and down the West Coast.

“Apple made the best computer. Rx Bar made the bar with no bullshit. We’re the world’s creamiest hummus,” Srour says.

Driveway Days

Srour is a juxtaposition of himself. “I’m baptized Greek Orthodox and I know Hebrew,” he says. As a precocious teenager, he could not wait to be a successful entrepreneur, yet academic probation was a constant presence in his life. “I hate anything that is abiding by rules…why do I have to do everything the way everybody else does it?”

The other constant presence in his Lebanese-Israeli home where he was raised in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley was food. Working for a summer with his dad in construction indirectly sparked his interest in the enterprise of food. “I learned very quickly how unifying food is because lunchtime is a very big deal on construction sites,” he says.”You work your ass off and it’s a hot day. There’s nothing better than when you sit down with an In-N-Out burger.”

With poor grades and a lack of interest in formal education, Srour did not get into any colleges, not that he really tried. He cared more about learning at the Lebanese restaurant where he was working and by reading the Wall Street Journal.

Habiza (originally called Habibi Hummus) began in the sunsetting days of his senior year of high school, making things a lot more official once he was no longer a student–with a fold-up table in his driveway. “I put up an American flag, bought a fridge, mixers. It was all the money I had in my savings account at the time. My mom was freaking livid.” With the pressure of his family’s finances in the back of his head, he also got permission to use the funds that would have gone towards his education.

It was more than just the rush of making a sale that intrigued Srour to pursue this venture. “Nobody really knows much about hummus,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘I think I’m the perfect advocate for this.’…sometimes you just have to blindly run.”

But How Does It Get So Creamy?

There are a few techniques that Srour’s grandmother taught him about her mother’s recipe that he has taken with him to create Habiza’s unique texture. “Tahini and the machine are what make it creamy,” he says.

Glyphosate residue-free garbanzo beans are sourced from a farm in Pullman, Washington. “I want our farmers to succeed with our success…it’s important that we bring people up with us along the way,” Srour says. Those beans are soaked overnight before being cooked and blended, placed on trays to chill for another several hours before other ingredients are added.

Habiza is unable to be replicated; Srour manipulated an old milling machine often used for peanut butter in order to blend chickpeas the way he wanted, installing a particularly sharp custom blade. “The circuit that we put in is so fast, the worry was that it would heat the product up because the product is cold from start to finish,” Srour says. “So we did the math on how to not make labor time go over, but get the texture we wanted.” His grandmother taught him that you need to keep the hummus cold through the process.

The tahini he sources is made from a premium white sesame, whereas more conventional sesame has a darker color and tastes more bitter. “There’s no neutral oil in the product to alter the tahini’s tried and true form.” Habiza is not shy on the sweet tahini.

In addition to Authentic Original, Habiza comes in four other varieties: Jalapeño Serrano, Dark Chili Bell Pepper, Garlic Green Onion, and brand new to the lineup, Spiced Lemon. This new flavor that’s just beginning to roll out includes a blend of fenugreek spice, cumin and cayenne red pepper for a kick. Srour took inspiration from the Middle Eastern mango amba dip, but decided to put his own twist on it by replacing the mango with tangy lemon.

Seed Oil Free Certified

Habiza is one of the first products to gain the official Seed Oil Free certification, a third-party verification by the Seed Oil Free Alliance, which formed one year ago. Its CEO, Jonathan Rubin, tells me about the high polyunsaturated fat content, specifically omega-6 fatty acids, in seed oils. “These tend to oxidize more rapidly when they’re exposed to high heat,” he says, referring to refinement, a common step in manufacturing many shelf-stable products. “We’re getting extremely concentrated forms of this omega-6 fat, changing our omega-6 to omega-3 ratio…It can cause inflammation in the body and lead to a slew of negative side effects.”

Srour makes his hummus the way hummus is made in the home, just on a larger scale. Seed oils are not an ingredient in authentic hummus, so he feels they don’t belong in Habiza. “It tastes better,” he says. “People deserve that.”

The Seed Oil Free Alliance defines a seed oil as any liquid oil composed of fatty acids extracted from the seed of a plant. These have highly-concentrated fatty acids that contain very little nutritional value compared to whole foods. Soybean, corn, canola, sunflower and grapeseed oil are some of the most common examples. “These are roughly between 50-70% omega-6 as opposed to seed oil-free alternatives like olive and avocado oil, which are under 20% omega-6,” Rubin says.

Of course, Habiza’s tahini contains sesame in more of a ground form rather than its oil, but still, the Seed Oil Free Alliance considers sesame oil ‘low concern.’ “It doesn’t require the same industrial equipment to extract… the tahini actually retains the fiber protein,” Rubin says. “Sesame oil is typically higher in antioxidants.”

Rubin formed the Alliance partly because of food labels claiming the product contained an ingredient like an avocado oil, without mentioning upfront that it is actually also filled with perhaps a sunflower oil. “Oftentimes the companies don’t even know that they’re purchasing an ingredient that’s adulterated, let alone the consumer who’s paying a premium for it,” he says. Sub-ingredients, which often include seed oils, aren’t always required to list. The certification, which is granted after a product undergoes several tests, ensures ingredient integrity and a less confusing shopping experience for consumers.

Rubin explains that consumers do not need to be afraid of seed oils, but is rather trying to make them more aware of how prevalent they are, now more than ever, in our food system. “Having seed oils here and there if you’re eating out at a restaurant once in a while is not the end all,” he says. “It’s really about the constant and repetitive intake that people are consuming.”

From Grandma To Grocery

Habiza has become the top-selling hummus at its first retail partner, LA’s upscale grocer, Erewhon, gaining fast appeal of a certain demographic of shoppers. But now, as Habiza enters the conventional market, Target is taking a bet that a wide range of consumers are interested in spending on authentic, new-age craft products.

After about three years in business, Habiza is nearing 1,000 shelves nationwide, also becoming a modern staple at bodegas across New York City through a new distribution deal. Habiza is a contradiction just like Srour himself. The striking color-blocked containers hold a generations-old recipe. They’re hard to miss among the refrigerated dips set. The consumer is faced with the fact that they are holding the ‘world’s creamiest hummus’ in the palm of their hands. It creates a sentiment of heightened curiosity that concludes in adding to cart. “It was about letting the eyes and the heart connect,” Srour says.

He describes Gen-Z branding as ‘the antithesis of Millennial branding.’ “It’s all about being straightforward…we are the world’s creamiest hummus,” he says. “Leaning into the product’s indulgence…direct communication. We have nothing to hide.” It’s anyone’s best guess if he connects with this style because of the generation in which he was born, or if the aesthetic was born because of young visionaries like himself, but the modern branding correlates with who Srour is at his core. “Part of my work ethic is that I go into these extreme circumstances.”

In collaboration with branding and marketing agency, Farryheight, Habiza has set itself up for success in a competitive space crowded with legacy brands. “Jonathan has tapped into the Gen Z obsession with ingredient transparency and better-for-you snacks without compromise,” says Farrynheight CEO and founder Farryn Weiner, who has also invested in Habiza. “From Erewhon to Target, we see massive potential for Habiza to scale as a household name, driven by a brand that’s as culturally resonant as it is commercially viable.”

Srour is most proud of the authentic consistency he has achieved with Habiza. “We don’t want to be health macro freaks,” he says. “We want to go down in history as the world’s creamiest hummus, point blank.”

He knows he’s in the only country in the world where Habiza’s success could be a reality. “I am Israeli. I am Lebanese. I have a Jewish mother and a Christian father…and among all things, I’m an American,” Srour says. “We’re doing this for every single kid that sits in school…getting told by everyone, ‘you’re on the wrong track,’ when really they’re on the right track.”