How Women Food Entrepreneurs Have Made The Most Of The Pandemic

Food runs in my veins. I have never enjoyed anything as much as I have cooking, designing recipes and the business of it all. Growing up, all I needed was a good meal from my mom and dad to make my day, or turn my frown upside down. Here is my story of becoming a woman food entrepreneur.

People often ask me how I knew I wanted to be a chef, and the answer isn’t some big, motivational incident. I just knew. I was one of the lucky few who have always known what they wanted to do with their lives. I was interested in fashion and style for a while, and I still love to incorporate that in my food, but cooking was always my first love. Coming from a Punjabi family, food of all kinds was celebrated at my home. As a kid, I would find any excuse I could to cook with my parents! My father would keep this recipe diary and I ended up following that habit too, so I think you could say that good cooking runs in my blood! Of course while studying the culinary arts, I did move into the business aspect of it all too! Knowing how to cook was my passion, but there is more to the food business than that and I wanted to equip myself with that knowledge too.

Those who inspired me

There was a time where I was nervous about moving from cooking to hospitality and chef Vikas Bagul, one of my mentors, just helped me push through it. He encouraged me to study the business aspect of the food and beverage industry and for that I will always be grateful. Dropping off my whites was such an enriching experience, even though that kind of thing is usually looked down on, but I just went for it and it changed my life. After that, nothing seemed as scary! Sundiksha Panchekar is another major influence of mine. She was my first boss after I finished studying. When I started working under her, the rose-tinted glasses came off and the reality of it all set in, and guess what? It wasn’t bad at all. She helped me build up my work ethic, my sense of ownership, and learning the importance of revenue. Without her, I wouldn't be the chef and person I am. Learning from her resulted in me being so good at spearheading and running some very prominent restaurants in the country.

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How I started up

I remember when I took my sabbatical from work, it was a whole journey in itself. I travelled to all the fancy schools abroad and took up these exciting new courses and classes that taught me so much about how food can be a lifestyle and how it's expressed and accessed globally. It was, really, all I needed to come back and cook more freely, while also teaching people how to cook and to have fun while doing it! In that sense, Cookery Studio I have been part of has been such a personal passion project for me. It was a challenge, as all important things can be, but it felt like such a rush, and it helped me achieve my dream of reaching out to everyday people and helping them connect with food. Especially the online video content I began putting up for them, that was an insane stepping stone for me. For the first time people saw me! I wasn't in the shadows anymore, I felt so empowered!

The pandemic experience

The online classes I hosted have played such a pivotal role in bringing people and food together, in fact, the digital arena has been a huge part of my own personal growth. I'M Wholesome is a new lease on life for me, honestly I’ve been able to experiment so much with everything we provide and create. Especially during the pandemic, we expanded to all kinds of cuisines for our meal platters and gift hampers. The hope was that making all this exotic food at home would fill the void everyone was feeling from not being able to travel and seeing each other. My absolute favourite new addition has to be the grazing tables we create, they are such fun to create and the joy they bring to these intimate, full of love gatherings often makes me feel like we’re spreading happiness in small doses.

Today, a year after starting I’M Wholesome, I have so much energy and I’ve learnt more than I ever thought I could. Improvisation, adapting, innovating, pacing myself and my goals, these have become pillars for my business, there’s always more to do, more to learn and more to give. Of course I have my bad days, like everyone, but my team is such a backbone, we have become a typical big, happy family, so now most of what I do is for them. I think being as invested in them as I am, that is why I’M Wholesome has become what it is. I do think I spent a super long time procrastinating and if I hadn’t spent so much time focusing on the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, I probably would've gotten out there with my own work so much sooner.

My mind is always overflowing with all these new ideas about the future! And I’m always trying to keep up with the trends, make sure I create something for everyone. My goal, though, is to be able to build up a community, school or institute where no matter what the age, people can come in and learn to cook, fall in love with food and enjoy creating it. A home for food and food lovers.

Manpreet Dhody is the Co-founder at I’M Wholesome. The views expressed are the author's own.