How Jamila Crawford Pécou Turned Creativity Into Travel Business

by Mitti Hicks
November 20, 2025

Pécou inspires women to embrace multiple identities as entrepreneurs

When Jamila Crawford Pécou started bringing her vegan dishes to a customer appreciation day brunch for her friend’s boutique, she had no idea it would reroute her life.

Jamila Crawford Pécou wasn’t a trained chef. She was a mom who had become a vegan nine years earlier. She was home-cooking all the foods she loved in a plant-based way.

“My dishes would be the first to disappear,” Pécou tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “My friends asked if I would consider catering the brunches from then on.”

She started a catering company in 2004 for friends, and her dishes became an instant hit. Word spread fast, and within four years of starting her business, she had become a quiet force serving vegan delights to celebrities like Erykah Badu, Common, and Lupita Nyong’o.

If one thing is clear, Pécou is a trendsetter and was at the forefront of the plant-based movement before it became a trend. The vegan cookbook author is a creative at heart, with passions that span fashion, interior design, gardening, and travel. Pécou has never been confined to one lane, and her brand, EARTHCANDYARTS, proves that.

Now, after years of planning restorative getaways for friends, she’s transformed her love of exploration into a new venture: curating trips for women who need space to rest, reset, and rediscover themselves.

From Creativity to Curating Travel Experiences

RE is Pécou’s travel business under her EARTHCANDYARTS brand. She curates culinary experiences, activities native to the destination, and wellness for women who are on a mission to restore balance.

Pécou is known within her circle as the trip planner. She would plan the activities for the itinerary, and her family and friends would pay her and show up. During a photoshoot with her husband on one of their many adventures, one of the photos came back and looked like an advertisement for travel. That photo sparked another interest: trip planning for others.

Source: Jamila Crawford Pécou

“I thought about what the name could be and came back up with ‘RE,’” she says. “Re has so much to it. Reboot, refresh, restart.”

She plans trips during the equinox and the solstice each season. Retreats are held as the seasons change so that people can set their intentions for the new season. Pécou has curated meaningful experiences for women in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Indonesia, Tanzania, and more.

“During the trips, we set out intentions for the week, we have an opening ceremony to invoke change, and every retreat has a spiritual component before sunrise,” she adds.

The Thread That Connects It All

Pécou inspires women to embrace multiple identities as entrepreneurs and as wives, moms, and grandmothers.

Studies show that women entrepreneurs often struggle with their dual identities. It’s not uncommon for women to struggle to navigate the expectations of traditional roles alongside owning a business, which can affect their business, work-life balance, and confidence.

As the world celebrates Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, Pécou is a reminder that women can forge their own path. In between being a wife, mom to four, and grandmother to three, she’s already thinking about what’s next. She plans to expand her travel business by writing another book of her travels, with stories, recipes, and photos.

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