Student wins CIBC award for bringing fine cuisine to private yachts.
Combining his passion for fine cuisine and sailing the open seas, Joseph Cooke formed a business which last week won the British Columbia CIBC Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Cooke, a fourth-year Tourism Management student at Capilano College, captured the $1,000 prize for Salt Water Chefs, a business that provides chefs for private yachts and crewed charter operations.
The business, incorporated in January 2005, had a promising inaugural year, especially considering Cooke operated Salt Water Chefs while attending school full time.
Cooke, a former chef at Cafe De Medici in Vancouver and the Westin Resort & Spa in Whistler, and who also has sailing and yachting experience, realized there was a need to be filled.
"Spending years at high-end restaurants, you get an appreciation and a passion for fine eating and gourmet food," says Cooke, 23. "I saw there was real lack of this [service] on the water.
"To me, it was a real no-brainer that if you could bring that art and passion from the restaurants to the water, you could provide a real quality service to the marine industry."
While attending school, Cooke drew up a business plan and launched the company last January, hoping to establish Salt Water Chefs during the April-to-September boating season and the Christmas period. Without any advertising, Cooke got word out through an e-mail blitz of marine contacts, and by walking the docks, talking to boat owners and ship captains. He landed five clients, receiving contracts that ranged from one-day to 100-day jobs. Cooke does some of the chef duties himself. On other occasions, he contracts out the services of the chef to the yacht. Rates vary, with clients paying $130 to $275 a day for the chef's services.
"I keep the business very exclusive, very private and very low-key," says Cooke. "It's a real high-end industry with a lot of money, so I try to keep the image of being very private, something that only the people who use the service would know about."
On one occasion, Cooke received a 7 a.m. call, was at the boat two hours later, and made a dinner for 50 that evening.
Cooke flies to Toronto in May for the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship Inc. National Exposition (May 15-16), where he hopes to become the first western Canadian winner in the 10-year history of the national CIBC Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
The winner of that competition will represent Canada at the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards, Nov. 4-6 in Chicago.
Reprinted with permission. "A Business Plan that’s Seaworthy" by Marke Andrews, The Vancouver Sun Monday, April 3, 2006.
