“Customers are really enjoying the product, and they’ve been helping spread the word about the eggroll lady, that’s me,” said Lisa Kapryan, founder and owner of Maly’s Foods.
For the last three years, Naperville resident Lisa Kapryan has sold vegetable egg rolls at various markets in the area through her business, Maly’s Foods. It’s a Laotian recipe made up of not just veggies, but a lifelong family tradition.
Learning the recipe from her mother
“We’ve been making these egg rolls since we were younger. It was a recipe passed down from my grandma to my mom. My mom is Maly, she taught us how to make these rolls. It’s something we’ve made over the years for family and friends, and everyone would comment that they were so delicious, and why didn’t we sell them?” said Kapryan.
Maly grew up in Laos, a country located in Southeast Asia. Kapryan said her mother was forced to flee her home during a war in the early 1970s, carrying her two children, Kapryan, a baby, and her sister, a toddler, out of the country on foot.
“Maly literally is a survivor. She crossed the river from Laos all the way to Thailand so we could get to a refugee camp,” said Kapryan.
The family arrived in the United States in 1979. In 2003, Maly suffered a heart attack and stroke that required emergency brain surgery, leaving her in need of 24/7 care.
Launching Maly’s Foods
In 2016, Kapryan began supporting her father full-time in caring for Maly, before switching roles with her sister in 2022. With more time on her hands, she launched Maly’s Foods that summer to honor her beacon of inspiration.
“Currently, we have one product that we launched. It’s our frozen vegan egg rolls. They’re simple vegetables. We use cabbage, carrots, onions, vermicelli noodles, it’s a green mung bean noodle, and black fungus mushrooms,” said Kapryan.
She runs the business on her own from her home kitchen, producing between 200 to 300 rolls in an eight-hour workday.
“It is pretty labor-intensive. You have to chop up the vegetable ingredients, make the mixture, wrap them, hand-roll them separately, cook them, and we take the extra step to freeze them so it would be convenient for our customers to take home and heat it up themselves,” said Kapryan.
The business operates seven days a week, which includes selling at local farmers markets. Maly’s Foods can be found at the Naper Settlement Farmers Market, Elmhurst Farmers Market, and others, or purchased online. The full list of market locations is available on the Maly’s Foods website.
Continuing to grow the business
“When I first started the business, I thought it would be more about product and sales, but it became much more. My customers are telling me that I’ve inspired them career-wise and in life. So really, this journey, this new adventure, is about hope and inspiration,” said Kapryan.
To continue that mission, Kapryan said she hopes to grow the business by potentially moving into a commercial kitchen and hiring staff. But most importantly, she hopes to continue honoring her mother’s legacy.
“Our mom, she would always say to us, ‘everybody loves Maly’s egg rolls.’ So we’ll continue to fulfill her wishes,” said Kapryan.
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