It began in a flower shop. With the seeds of their parents’ encouragement and a relentless work ethic, brothers Tariq and Kamran Farid grew their once-small family business into the multimillion-dollar venture Edible Arrangements.
Last month Edible Arrangements opened its 1,000th franchise, in Cranston, R.I. The fruit-bouquet business has set up shop in 15 countries, but the brothers say theirs is an only-in-America story.
Hailing from Pakistan, the Farids are among the country’s growing number of immigrant entrepreneurs. Foreign-born business owners accounted for 28% of new entrepreneurs in 2011 — up from 15% in 1999, when they founded Edible Arrangements — the 2011 Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity reports.