Original Flava, the online moniker of south London based brothers Shaun and Craig McAnuff, was created after the pair started their YouTube channel of the same name in March 2016, making step by step Caribbean food recipe videos.
Inspired by their Jamaican heritage and their mother and grandmother’s recipes, they decided to add their own twists to traditional dishes, and with their first one-minute video received one million views overnight, subsequently generating a social following of 400k on Facebook, 59.7k on Instagram, and 16k subscribers on YouTube, with celebrity fans including Melissa Hemsley and Jourdan Dunn. The brothers also visit schools where they run cookery workshops to provide opportunities to children at risk of becoming involved with gangs. Following the success of their Original Flava Caribbean Cookbook and their Vegan Ebook, which received praise from BuzzFeed, The Times and the BBC, Shaun and Craig released Original Flava: Caribbean Recipes from Home in August 2019, followed by a series of book signings and talks.