BC Business
Sylvie Rochette, president, Victorian Epicure | BCBusinessReturn to: B.C. Entrepreneur of the Year 2012
Congratulations to Sylvie Rochette, president of Victorian Epicure Inc., and the 2012 Pacific Region Entrepreneur of the Year in Business-to-Consumer Products and Services.
In the early ’90s, Sylvie Rochette had a dilemma similar to millions of other mothers: how to prepare healthy, home-cooked meals for her two young kids without spending all day in the kitchen. She experimented with combinations of spices until she created her own premixed blends of spices and seasonings. And in just a little over a decade, Rochette went from hawking her homemade mixes out of the back of her station wagon at local farmers markets around Victoria to running a company bringing in around $50 million in annual sales, with 150 full-time employees.
Rochette says she’s enthusiastic about staying ahead of cooking trends to “create Epicure addicts.” But she’s really proud that her company was about 20 years ahead of the curve when it came to cultivating healthy, ethically sourced, “all clean” ingredients from around the world.
Her jet-setting lifestyle locating the highest-quality ingredients, in addition to being enviable, also gives Epicure’s blends an edge. “We’re really committed to sourcing products from the best possible suppliers,” she explains. “We get the best cinnamon from Indonesia, the best lemongrass from Thailand. And my travels keep the company on top of food trends.”
One of Rochette’s major innovations was her choice to jettison her six-year foray into the wholesale market and focus on distributing her blends through a party-plan direct-sales model (think Tupperware circa the 1970s). And Epicure did so at a time when the model was practically non-existent in Canada.
In the bubbly entrepreneur’s own words, the model cuts out the middleman, so Epicure’s base of loyal customers receive fresher products that aren’t sitting unsold and collecting dust on a shelf for months. And with around 10,000 independent sellers peddling the bottled blends across the country, the 200-plus product line certainly has a following.
“Getting together, sharing recipes and eating — it really struck a chord,” she says. “It’s like a girls’ night out. It’s really the word of mouth, that testimonial of buying from someone you know, or from someone you know knows. It has a lot of appeal.”
What did you want to be when you were a kid? My bliss has always been in cooking and sharing and educating.
What was your first big break in your current business? If there was any, it was buying our 80-acre property in North Saanich. It’s a multi-million-dollar property and I was able to buy it at the current price with only $50,000 down.
Looking back, what’s one thing you would do differently, professionally speaking? I’m not sure that I would do anything really, really different. I really enjoyed the process and the journey and if there were any great mistakes, they were part of that.
What book would you recommend for entrepreneurs starting out?Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie.