In 2014 Ulrich Le Kay started experimenting with cooking as a hobby, resulting in a passion for the art of creating culinary cuisines. After he offered to cater for a friend’s event, Le Kay found that his cooking skills could become a new source of income and started his unique catering business, Potjie Guy.
He chose to focus on a potjie kos catering service as a means of innovation and creating an experience for customers.
“We go on site to you as a client and we prepare the food at your place. Some clients like that we take them through the process,” says Le Kay.
When starting the business, he was still juggling a corporate job but quickly focused his efforts into growing the business and decided to access a specific market.
“The initial plan was to cook for businesses that are looking for an alternative to canteen food,” he adds, but this soon changed on realisation that his business had more customers at food markets.
“With that being said it was not a regular stream of income because you would get to a market and people would prefer hotdogs or burgers rather than potjie kos. It took us some time to realise certain markets are not made for us.”
Experiment allows Le Kay to follow his passion of creating culinary cuisines
In 2014 Ulrich Le Kay started experimenting with cooking as a hobby, resulting in a passion for the art of creating culinary cuisines. After he offered to cater for a friend’s event, Le Kay found that his cooking skills could become a new source of income and started his unique catering business, Potjie Guy.
He chose to focus on a potjie kos catering service as a means of innovation and creating an experience for customers.
“We go on site to you as a client and we prepare the food at your place. Some clients like that we take them through the process,” says Le Kay.
When starting the business, he was still juggling a corporate job but quickly focused his efforts into growing the business and decided to access a specific market.
“The initial plan was to cook for businesses that are looking for an alternative to canteen food,” he adds, but this soon changed on realisation that his business had more customers at food markets.
“With that being said it was not a regular stream of income because you would get to a market and people would prefer hotdogs or burgers rather than potjie kos. It took us some time to realise certain markets are not made for us.”
Having made his leap into a new career, Le Kay believes that being sociable allows entrepreneurs to take criticism.
“You have to be comfortable to engage with people because you are going to get good feedback and you are going to get bad feedback. You must be able to handle it appropriately or professionally,” says Le Kay, warning against shyness when in spaces like food markets.
“You still have to convince people to buy from you. So, if you are sitting down or on your phone, people aren’t going to be attracted to that.”
He shares that he hopes to expand his business with more trailers which will allow for more employment opportunities. Le Kay is also making plans to expand with more food trucks that will allow them to tour more mainstream events like the Delicious Food Festival.
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