MEET THE FOUNDER
From Aguadilla to your kitchen
Hedman Soto, Founder
Aguadilla, PR · Brooklyn, NY · Asbury Park, NJ
AGUADILLA, PUERTO RICO
Where it started
I grew up in Aguadilla, on the northwestern coast of Puerto Rico. It is the part of the island where the beaches are quietly the best, where sugar cane fields stretched past the house, and where my parents ran bakeries that became the rhythm of my childhood.
I learned to cook from my mom. I learned to bake from my dad. Surrounded by the women and men in my life who loved to feed people, food became how I understood family.
2011 — A ONE-WAY TICKET
Moving to New York
I moved to New York in 2011 to finish my degree in marketing. I came with a retail job lined up. The job lasted three months. Retail in New York was not for me.
The city stuck, though. I built a career in supply chain instead, working with brands I had long admired: Jet.com, Jonathan Adler, and most recently Milk Bar, where I lead operations and supply chain.
What I learned in those years was not just sourcing or logistics. It was how to scale something with integrity. How to keep a brand's soul intact while making it work at volume. That training quietly became the foundation for everything I am building now.
Food became how I understood family.
— Hedman Soto
SOMETHING I COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT
Coming back to the island
Starting in 2022, I began visiting Puerto Rico more often. Each trip, I noticed the same thing: a generation of young entrepreneurs on the island building something quietly remarkable. Local food brands, restaurants, products with real craft behind them. People who were not waiting for permission.
I wanted to help. Not just write a check or post about it, but use what I knew. So I started Hedman Soto with two ideas that turned out to be the same idea: bring the best of these Puerto Rican products to the U.S. market, and offer the founders the supply chain and operations expertise to scale them properly.
WHY IT HAS MY NAME
A brand with my name on it
Putting your own name on a brand is risky. It also keeps you honest. Every product that carries Hedman Soto has to be one I would serve at my own table. To my family. To my friends. To my mom. That is the filter.
I am not a chef. I have never claimed to be. But I have spent my whole life around the kitchen, and I know what a good ingredient feels like when it lands.
CHEF-LED, FOUNDER-CURATED
The chefs I work with
Chef Vivoni — I found him through his seasoning, not his name. The bottle spoke louder than any introduction could have. Chuleria en pote is Puerto Rican slang for something cute and tiny, something perfect in a small package. That is exactly what the seasoning is. I reached out cold, and we became the first and only U.S.-based online retailer of his line.
Chef Rafael Ubior — I found him through ginger. He founded SUR Barra Nikkei in San Juan, Puerto Rico's first Nikkei restaurant. Japanese-Peruvian cuisine, the kind he trained in at Astrid and Gaston in Lima. My mom loves ginger tea. I love ginger. There is a resilience to that ingredient that feels like us — Caribbean, Latin American, the kind of strength that keeps moving forward no matter what. Made By Cooks lives that on every plate. I have not made it to the restaurant yet, but it is at the top of my list.
Ginger has a resilience that feels like us. Caribbean, Latin American, the kind of strength that keeps moving forward no matter what.
— Hedman Soto
SURPRISE AND DELIGHT
How I host
Hosting is an art. It can become a memory people carry, or one they want to erase. I take it seriously.
When I host, I prepare in advance. I know the menu, the dietary restrictions, what each guest likes and what they do not. I set the table the way it deserves. I do not want to be the host running around the kitchen while everyone else is having conversation. I want to be in the conversation. That is the rule.
No one leaves my home empty-handed. A small gift, something to remember the night. That is how I was raised in Aguadilla. Guests do not leave without something. They do not leave without being fed, either. If someone walks into my house unannounced, you cook. Coffee with homemade cookies. Breakfast. Lunch. Whatever the hour is. No one leaves with an empty stomach.
My signature dish is arroz con gandules. My parents send me fresh gandules from our house in Puerto Rico, so the dish I make in Brooklyn or at the house in New Jersey carries the island with it.
No one leaves with an empty stomach.
— A rule I learned in Aguadilla
TWO JOBS, ONE MISSION
Where I am now
I still work full-time at Milk Bar, leading operations and supply chain. I love it. I love building teams. I love taking something good and helping it scale without losing what made it good in the first place.
Hedman Soto is my baby. I split my time between Brooklyn Heights and Asbury Park on the Jersey Shore, and most evenings and weekends go to this. The goal is to make it my full-time work — to develop our own products, expand the Latin chef partnerships, and build something that gives back to Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America in a way that is real, not symbolic.
