Accounting Life Magazine
February 16 2006
By Pauline Braithwaite

‘Who’s making dinner tonight?’  Who hasn’t heard or said this before?  I heard it myself last night!  It is a question that’s reverberating in households across the country.  Dual income households, increased commuting time and demanding work and home schedules, has led to an acute need to find ways to eat healthy meals and spend more time with family and friends. 

 An enterprising professional and entrepreneur, Chef Sonia Thapar and her company the Canadian Personal Chef Alliance, offers a long overdue solution.  More Canadians are turning to Personal Chefs to take charge over of their meal planning and preparation.  Personal Chefs consult with their clients about their health and dietary restrictions and food preferences, and will then develop a customised menu; they take care of the grocery shopping, attend at your home and prepare custom entrées for that evening and the rest of the week.  They even clean the kitchen afterwards!  Yes!  It sounds too good to be true!

Helen, a busy mother of 4, juggles their after-school activities, a part-time job and maintaining a home.  She uses a weekly personal chef service to avoid the fast-food cycle that they were in a year ago.  “I would buy groceries every week, but never had time to cook.  We would eat take-out most nights and ended up throwing most of the groceries away.  The service has saved us money and brought our family closer together, since we now have more time for each other.”

Once thought of as only for the rich and famous, it is now becoming a staple in many average Canadian households - as essential as a vacuum.  Not only does it free up approximately 15 hours per week, that a typical family would otherwise spend on meal planning, preparation and kitchen clean-up, today’s educated consumers have realised the immeasurable health benefits that a Personal Chef can provide. Meals are prepared without added preservatives, additives, and colours etc. – just fresh, wholesome ingredients. 

Andrew, a young, single Toronto executive, didn’t want to cook for himself after a long day at the office, and he was tired of eating take-out or at restaurants.  He found that he was quickly gaining weight, and lacked energy.  With the help of his Personal Chef, he now comes home to a healthy meal.  “My food allergies are accounted for, the meals are delicious, and I have been able to maintain my weight without any other changes to my lifestyle.  I feel and look great!  I warm up my dinner, eat and have the rest of the evening to do as I please.”

The Personal Chef industry has been recognised as one of the fastest growing small businesses in North America.  In the United States, it is projected that by 2010 there will be over 10,000 Personal Chefs serving over 300,000 clients, spending over 1 Billion Dollars.  “The socio-economic climate in Canada isn’t that different here,” says Chef Sonia.  In only a few years, her company now has over 200 Chefs across the country, and expects to have nearly 5000 Chefs in the next few years.

Chef Sonia credits the dramatic explosion in her company not just to the need for Personal Chefs at home, but the fact that Personal Chefs also cater Intimate Dinners for two, private dinner parties etc., and are the perfect gift for weddings, birthdays, Mother’s Day, new moms and the ill or elderly.  It is the ultimate in luxury and pampering, without a high price tag. 

More recently, her company has developed special packages for businesses.  It is no secret that the average work day has increased for many Canadians.  Across Canada, Human Resource departments are waking up to the costs associated with disgruntled employees and their high turn-over – a recent study commissioned by 10 leading law firms in Canada, found that each time an associate lawyer left, it cost the firm approximately $315,000.  End-of-year bonuses partly make up for the long hours, but it doesn’t come close to fixing the work-home imbalance.  Many firms are now incorporating Personal Chef Services into their benefit and bonus structure.  Rewarding their employees with the ‘gift of time’ to spend with their friends and family, is worth more to the average Canadian than extra money at the end of the year, since much of that is lost in taxes anyway.  It is a step to putting added quality into their lives, and making the family feel rewarded for their sacrifice.  It also puts a kinder, friendlier ‘face’ on firms.

Corporate gift packages are also popular.  Gift baskets and bottles of wine have become passé, and no longer help to differentiate your firm from your competition in the minds of your client.  By gifting a Dinner for 4, for example, the ‘experience’ can last for several months – from the receipt of the giftcard in an elegant gift box, to planning a date with friends or family; from discussing the menu with the Chef, through to the actual dining experience.  Each step will keep you at the forefront of your client’s mind.

Since taking over in May 2005, Chef Sonia has taken the industry to new heights.  With a Bistro Dinner for 4 and Culinary Adventure gift package now available in over 600 Shoppers Drug Mart stores under their lifeEXPERIENCES banner, the Alliance is receiving unprecedented exposure.  She has also formed partnerships with many well-known companies, such as the Ernest and Julio Gallo Winery, IVO Cutlery and Calphalon.  No other Personal Chef organisation has taken such pro-active steps for the industry and its members.

In addition to the corporate partnerships, Chef Sonia has introduced mandatory liability insurance, and will be introducing mandatory Food Safety and Sanitation Certification for all members – training that is not required in the restaurant industry.  “The Alliance developed the only Ministry of Education approved Personal Chef Diploma Program, and we are now working on a Certificate program to teach cooks and chefs the business aspect of the industry.  Providing a high quality service is our goal, and these requirements are just a part of that.  They protect the client, the member chefs and the professionalism of the industry. 

The way to every Canadians heart might well be through their contented stomachs!

Chef Sonia, President of the Canadian Personal Chef Alliance and Sonia's Spicy Secrets, can be reached at 905 482 CHEF (2433) or 1-877-402-3221.

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