The Love Language of Ina Paarman’s Kitchen
Discover why we do what we do, and why we’ll never sell out.
When home cooks head to the kitchen to prepare delicious meals to put on the table for their family and friends, they’re using their love language – food. It’s only natural they should choose herbs, spices, sauces and stocks that have been developed with the same love and family in mind.
“We’ll never lose sight of where we began and where we are today. It’s what makes us what we are.”
Why We’ll Never Sell Out
Ina Paarman’s Kitchen has always been a family business, and always will be. We will never “sell out” – and there have been plenty of offers from big corporations over the years. Neither will we ever lose sight of where we began and where we are today. It’s what makes us what we are.
The oft-told origin story of how Ina Paarman started giving cooking lessons in a garage in the 1980s is the stuff of legend. Ina, her now late husband Ted and son Graham started the business with the proceeds from Ina’s self-published cookbook Cook with Ina Paarman, aided by Ted’s uncharacteristically bold decision to invest his hard-earned retirement savings into this start-up venture, despite his inherent aversion to risk taking.
Thanks to his foresight and courage in entrusting his financial future to the relative inexperience of his determined wife and youthfully idealistic son, this seed capital enabled Ina Paarman’s Kitchen to embark on a truly remarkable and uplifting South African journey.
Wall Mural at our Diep River Factory Complex
It Starts At Home
While Ina is the well-known face of Ina Paarman’s Kitchen, Graham is instrumental in driving the business side of things, and the catalyst for all that followed. Back then, having just completed his degree in chartered accountancy, but realising his heart was not in it at all, Graham had a lightbulb moment: “He said to me ‘why don’t we go into business together? You can cook and I can count!’,” Ina recalls.
This has become a catchphrase immortalised in the huge mural on the wall of our factory in Diep River, and acknowledges how dreams can become reality.
Today, Ina and Graham stand shoulder to shoulder (metaphorically if not literally, as Ina is of petite stature and would need to stand on a box) and hold Ina Paarman’s Kitchen to the same high standards they always have. The same personal touch goes into every new product, with extensive testing and tasting, now as it did then. The chocolate cake mix – our first – was famously baked 120 times before we were satisfied.
"Most South African people want to bake a nice chocolate cake and what I also found over the years when I was teaching, is how self image is tied up with a cake that comes out the oven."
“Most South African people want to bake a nice chocolate cake and what I also found over the years when I was teaching, is how self image is tied up with a cake that comes out the oven,” says Ina. “If it’s a flop they feel bad and take it personally. The first bake mix I developed was the chocolate cake and I set out to do the perfect chocolate cake. I wanted a cake that was still moist three days later, that had a strong chocolate flavour, and flop proof.”
And so it began. “When we set out to do a recipe we write it down and then take one – bake, taste, make changes. Take two, take three, and so on. Eventually we did 120 takes but we got there,” she laughs. “Now that recipe is cast in stone. Nobody changes it.”
From Our Kitchen to Yours
This is how the legacies forged by Ina Paarman’s Kitchen will live on.
Ina has often been asked if we have tasting panels, but she insists we’ve got to trust our own judgement. “Graham has a very good palate, and if I like it and he likes it, that’s good enough,” she says. The Paarman method hasn’t let us down yet. “Too many cooks can spoil the broth,” notes Ina.
Ina and Graham’s ethos is to never become complacent, to never sacrifice the principles on which the company is built, and that’s what makes Ina Paarman’s Kitchen different. That and of course the indisputable quality of products that are as delicious as homemade… just so much easier for home cooks, all around South Africans – and the world.
We invest the time so you don’t have to: If it’s good enough for our table, only then is it good enough for yours.
We go to great lengths to ensure our products are made as close to home-cooked as possible. From chargrilling our veg to hand-sorting our sun dried tomatoes, our factory production methods are as traditional as we can get. Browse our full range of products here.
