Flavours of success: Women food entrepreneurs share their dreams and aspirations

THIS MONTH we celebrate the successes of Malaysian women by introducing a few of the amazing personalities who are within our midst. Often doing things that we take for granted, they each have a story.

Here we feature two of them as we approach International Women’s Day which falls on March 8.

Michelle Chai, creative founder of Kintry

Michelle strikes one as confident and smart, and someone you would classify as a go-getter. She started her entrepreneurship journey early in life by working with several automotive brands, first modelling for them, and then eventually providing models and event services for several top-notch brands.

She “retired” from this when she got married and planned to settle down. But life had other plans. In 2014, as she was pregnant with her daughter and preparing for a newborn, her mother suddenly passed away.

Being very close to her mum, this affected her deeply and she did not have much time to dwell on it, because she soon brought little Amelie into the world. Dealing with both these huge moments in 2014 and not having her confidante, her late mum, with her to guide her caused a lot of anguish.

This eventually contributed to a breakdown of her marriage, and she got divorced in 2017. Whilst this was happening, Amelie was diagnosed with a nut allergy and Michelle began to experiment with ways of creating food that she could make for her daughter.

Having to resort to preparing these special meals for her little one inspired her to start baking healthy food for sale in a few bakeries. In time she realised that she could not scale the business appropriately as these were perishables. So she invested in some packaging equipment.

Lo and behold, Kintry was born. The name was a merging of the words "Kindred Pantry". She aimed to make food that made people happy, and after only a year working hard at it she managed to secure Ben's and Village Grocer supermarkets to carry her products. This was a huge feather in her cap and prompted her to secure a loan to scale up.

That was when she got a partner to come in and help run the production side of the business. They rented a shop lot and factory for the production. This helped her achieve her next milestone, which was the Halal certification in 2019.

Then in 2020 when the pandemic hit, she pivoted to producing and marketing care packages during Covid-19. This helped her grow the business up to about five times, she reckons. It was about this time that she continued her learning journey as a businesswoman by joining Entrepreneur Org, an international organisation with mentors. With help from this group, she planned to grow her market share at a time when most were downsizing.

Continuing her growth, she joined Endeavor Malaysia which is a local based entrepreneur group with a variety of experts from different fields. Michelle connected and learnt about digital marketing and how she could ensure that Kintry was showcased effectively. She adds that being in these two organisations helped shape her thinking process and to aim higher.

Having all these experiences helped her further grow Kintry in 2023 by 30%. To date, Michele is proud that her products are the only Malaysian products in Llaollao with the honey quinoa being a favourite of many.

Michelle is also grateful for where she is right now and acknowledges that being a person who initially wanted to be a psychologist, she is more in tune with human behaviour and intends to bring people together and inspire love with Kintry. To date, she has seven products under the brand with the most popular being salted egg chips and chocolate hazelnut granola.

For 2024, she has her has a focus on Thaifex 2024 in Bangkok and is on the lookout for a strategic partner to help her reach markets in Southeast Asia.

Jua, a brave Maggi Wanita star

Ida Faizura or Jua as she is popularly known is in stark contrast to Michelle. She is at home in the kitchen and behind the scenes. However, all this changed when she won a chance out of thousands of contestants to participate with twenty others in the Maggi Wanita Cukup Berani programme on TV3.

The show was critical in getting her out of her comfort zone, she said. After the initial interview, she was forced to become uncomfortable and it pushed her to think outside the box. This made her innovate under the pressure of competition and really brought out the best in her.

The mother of three said that at many times she doubted herself, but listening to mentors Ann Idris and Nana Mazan helped her become more confident and believe in her ability to think on her feet.

The Maggi programme was truly a watershed moment for this Cardiff-trained lawyer turned fashion entrepreneur turned food entrepreneur as she learnt a lot about becoming a content creator from Meta and Google specialists.

Her early life was planned to a T by her father, who decided that she had to become a lawyer. Once back from Wales, she worked at a firm in KL and specialised in intellectual property.

Tired of the rat race, she and her husband quit their jobs and started a fashion boutique in 2006. After running it for a few years with little support from the principal company based in Bali, they decided to shutter the business. This left them with a huge financial loss. While they were planning what would be next, Jua found out that her daughter was autistic. Deciding then and there that she would work from home to be able to spend as much time with her daughter, Jua started cooking and supplying cafes.

As time wore on, she involved herself in small and medium-scale industry programmes to learn how to upskill herself and upscale her business.

Covid-19 was a huge setback for her and others but with the help of TEKUN funds, she was able to manage it better.

Jua is known to her friends and family as the one who always brings food to occasions and her signature dish was lasagne. Little did she know that this dish would help propel her into the grand finals of the Maggi Wanita Cukup Berani programme.

She got to the finals and managed to cook it and impress the judges enough to win the 2nd place when she paired it with creamy feta lasagne soup, and bruschetta.

Her lesson from all this has been that far from being down and miserable through hardships in life, being on the Maggi programme helped Jua to think out of the box and she now appreciates her growth whilst having the knowledge that she has elevated herself.

As part of her contract as a content creator for Maggi, Jua creates content for Maggi every month, with one new recipe and a transformation video. You can find her recipes and taste her culinary skills by following her on Juacooknbake on Instagram. – The Vibes, March 3, 2024