Career & Entrepreneurship
Food & love: A winning recipe for business success – The Randin Chef
Although it’s difficult to tell from my name, I’m originally from India but I grew up in Dubai when most of the UAE was desert and the tallest building was only 30 stories high.
I moved to Canada in 1996 and would have probably still been there if I hadn’t met my Swiss husband. After a one-year stint in Lancaster, England I decided to move to Switzerland permanently in 2003.
For the past 17 years, I’ve worked for several international political and sports organizations in the Lake Leman area. Communications is my passion and I love telling a good story, getting creative with content, and finding interesting ways to convey key messages to an audience.
My story? I hate being in the kitchen!
There’s always a raised eyebrow when I tell people I met my husband Michel Randin the year he was a mature English student in London (ON), Canada, and I was one of the teachers at the school.
My Indian father raised more than an eyebrow when I first brought home my long-haired, unshaven, earring-toting Swiss boyfriend to meet the family. While the story is too long to recount here, let’s just say this bumpy start to our relationship has proved to be quite the conversation starter at the Indian cooking workshops that we now run.
A picture of when we first got together almost 20 years ago!
If you told me all those years ago that we would one day have a business in the culinary field, I would have laughed out loud. As all our friends know, my dinner special is making reservations, which is why my role is to look after all the Communications and Marketing so that Michel can concentrate on the cooking.
Michel, on the other hand, has always loved to cook but traded the dream of becoming a professional chef for a more ‘stable’ job and regular hours in banking.
He did a deep dive into Indian cooking when we visited my family in India in 2014. My aunt, Renee D’Souza, who has been his mentor and keenest supporter since, took him under her wing and showed him how to make several dishes from Mangalore and Goa, situated in the South of India.
Then after more than 25 years in the banking industry, the opportunity presented itself for Michel to make his pipe dream of being a chef, a reality. We took it, not really knowing where it would lead us.
The Randin Chef started off as a Facebook page in early 2019. Since then we’ve created workshops in Echichens (VD) for hands-on cooking experiences as well as an online spice boutique with the aim of developing a one-stop-shop for all your Indian cooking needs in Switzerland.
That’s me behind the camera. Anything to avoid cooking… (Credit: Lisa Sinanian)
Two heads are usually better than one
We’ve always talked about striking out on our own and creating something that would allow us to make our mark in our respective industries. We each have a different set of skills that we would have served us well for individual businesses. But it made more sense to pool our resources into one venture where together we could concentrate on doing what we do best.
While Michel’s professional work experience and training as an economist serves us well with the business finances and administration, I enjoy transmitting his passion for cooking and his savoir-faire to our online community. We spent a lot of time working on our brand voice and storytelling, which we wanted to be as authentic and personable as possible.
Michel is the voice of reason when I want to splurge on business non-essentials, and I like to push him out of his comfort zone. He’s had to put himself out there, learn how to get comfortable in front of a camera, and before people he’s just met which is not an easy task for an introvert.
Working together has tested our relationship and we’ve had to strictly define our roles in order to reduce the number of arguments! But creating this structure has also been necessary to give us both a clear sense of direction and purpose.
On our wedding day in October 2004. The Randin Chef business was the furthest thing on my mind!
What’s the mission of The Randin Chef?
Switzerland is a nation of foodies. But a lot of people are reluctant to use Indian spices even though they love the cuisine.
The purpose of The Randin Chef is, first and foremost, to give people the confidence to use these spices in simple vegetarian, non-vegetarian, and seafood dishes. We do this primarily through workshops for small groups, where people spend a few hours learning how to put together an Indian meal with Michel followed by dinner.
There is now an online spice shop on The Randin Chef website to make it easy for people to acquire the necessary spices to create these dishes, including Michel’s signature ghee.
What are the challenges of starting a business in Switzerland?
It’s not easy turning a passion project into a viable business, especially when on a tight budget.
The Swiss market is a difficult one to break into as a brand needs more time to prove their worth here, I find. It’s taken some people by surprise to see Michel, and not me, wearing the apron at these workshops!
We get by with a lot of help from friends!
While it can be difficult to create and set up a business in Switzerland, we’ve been lucky to have received an overwhelming amount of support and encouragement from various people.
The Randin Chef logo was produced by Gynelle Alves a multi-talented Mumbai based artist and illustrator and the promo video was created by Juraj Berezny, a Swiss-based videographer and the creative genius behind Now or Never VDO.
The Randin Chef has also brought us into the orbit of some incredible people like bloggers Ashley Puckett from the Luna Guide to Travel and Sara Dubler from A Hungry Blonde as well as photographers like Elisabeth Fransdonk from EMO PHOTO and Richard Powles-Brown. Joëlle Cornuz of Particule Z has been ever so generous with her insights, advice and in opening doors for us.
Personally, I would have never had the energy or drive to do what I’m doing now if it wasn’t for the encouragement I’ve received from my network of female friends, who number too many to be mentioned here. All I can say is, being a female entrepreneur is made easier when you’re on the receiving end of all this assistance.
The Randin Chef in action during one of his Indian cooking workshops
Looking ahead
The long-term aim is to make The Randin Chef an international company which holds cooking courses in different cuisines for individuals, children as well as innovative team building activities for corporations. Over the coming year, however, we’re hoping to increase the number of workshops around Switzerland and create partnerships with local producers and companies.
Covid-19 has made this goal seem a little harder to reach and it was a bit of a blow as business was just beginning to pick up when it hit. But like many other small businesses it’s been a good lesson in flexibility and crisis planning as well as a reminder of the need to always keep an open mind.
About the Author:
Vanessa Martin Randin is a Communications specialist with over 15 years of experience working in international organizations in Switzerland. She holds a BA in Music from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and an MA in International Relations and Strategic Studies from Lancaster University. A keen photographer and traveler, she currently runs a cooking business with her husband, The Randin Chef.
