THE HABIBI STORy
Habibi Melons
is a love story.
Two people. A daughter.
A craving that wouldn't go away.
And a mission to bring real, seeded
fruit back to the table.
How We Began
Narjess and Abass met during the 2020 housing crisis a chapter when so many people, all over
the world, started looking past the headlines and asking harder questions about what was being put
on their plates, in their bodies, and into their communities.
What they found broke their hearts. Processed everything. Sugars in places sugar didn't belong.
Produce engineered to look good and last long but stripped of the very life it was meant to carry.
They started cooking together.
Trading recipes. Walking each other through what they'd been taught and what they were now unlearning. Six years and a daughter later, the conversation is still happening just now over a dinner table the whole family sits at.
The Inspiration
When Narjess was pregnant, her body knew what it needed. Seeded watermelons. The kind she grew up with. The kind her grandmother used to slice on the kitchen floor in southern Iraq.
She couldn't find them anywhere. Not in the grocery stores. Not at the farmers markets. Not from the produce managers she chased down asking, "Do you have any with seeds?" She cried herself to sleep over it more times than she'd care to admit.
On the very last day of her 42-week pregnancy, she finally found them. And from that moment, the craving turned into a calling. If she had to go this hard to find real fruit, other mothers did too. Other families. Other communities.
Habibi Melons was born from that a refusal to accept that seeded, real, alive fruit was something we had to give up.
In Loving Memory
Mei
Our first-born daughter, Mei, was the curious, joyful,
watermelon-loving baby who inspired everything you see here.
She passed into Heaven at 6 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days.
May God rest her precious soul.
Every melon we share carries her memory.
Every family we feed honors her.
This is her legacy.
Abass
Co-founder · Amateur boxer · Trainer · Nutritionist
Born and raised in Detroit by his immigrant mother and alongside six siblings.
Abass grew up watching his mother make a home out of whatever they had and most days, what they had was
prayer, honey buns, and her unshakeable good humor.
Sports gave him structure.
Soccer, martial arts, baseball. The disciplines of nutrition and movement came naturally from there.
Today he focuses on HIIT and calisthenics, training others to honor their bodies the way he learned to honor his own.
Narjess
Co-founder · Aspiring vernacular architect · Founder of the Selima Foundation
Narjess found refuge as a young girl on her great aunt Halima's wheat and date farm in southern Iraq.
Three years of harvesting dates, pressing syrup, making yogurt, weaving baskets, and tending to animals in the desert afternoons a time when most Iraqis go to sleep.
A head injury and the epilepsy that followed brought her back to the United States. But the farm never left her.
Today she's pursuing vernacular architecture, agritecture, and biomimicry, and she founded the Selima Foundation a local women's shelter named after love.
Habibi Melons is her way of bringing the farm back to families who never got to grow up with one.
How We Source
Habibi Melons works with 40+ independent 4th and 5th generation family farmers nationwide.
People who still know what seeded fruit is supposed to taste like because their grandparents
grew it.
Every melon is picked with the chlorophyll still in the stem. Cold-shipped directly.
By the time it reaches you, it's 0 to 2 days fresh off the farm.
No GMOs. No engineered shelf life. No compromise.
Just real fruit, the way it's been grown for generations.
Trusted partners like Sweet Southern Melons help us deliver heritage varieties from the South.
Every farm in our network shares one commitment: the old way was never broken.
What We Believe
"Then God said, 'Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and
every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food.'"
— Genesis 1:29
What we eat manifests itself in every aspect of our lives. We don't take that lightly.
Our values are rooted in this verse, and in the belief that the foods we were given seeded, alive,
capable of reproducing are the foods our bodies were designed for. We build our family table
around that truth. We invite yours to join it.
Our Mission
Our mission is simple: make seeded, non-GMO fruit available in all 50 states. To live in a world
where real fruit — the kind that can plant itself, feed itself, sustain itself — wins over the majority
again.
A seedless fruit is a dead fruit. The old way was never broken.
Welcome to the Family Table
Now you know us. We'd love to know you too.
A seedless fruit is a dead fruit.
The old way was never broken.
See where we'll be next →
Habibi Melons — A Love Story.
Real, seeded fruit from 40+ family farms nationwide.
Family Table
The Farms
Grown with care in the Southern Agricultural District.
[email protected]
(313) 888-8983
Partner With Us
Interested in bringing our heritage varieties to your market or restaurant?
© 2026 Habibi Melons. Backed by Sweet Southern Melons. All rights reserved.
Built by Valor Visionary Solutions