Those Who Dare, Win

In 1982, Ina threw caution to the wind, leaving behind the security of her lecturing post to start a cookery school in the family’s converted garage. The business got off to a slow start as people were unaccustomed to paying to learn how to cook, and she did not have a budget for advertising. So, her teenage sons were dispatched on their bicycles through the neighbourhood to drop homemade flyers into people’s post boxes. But, seven years later, the school became hugely popular as a result of the life breathed into it by Ina’s infectious love for cooking and teaching.

At the same time, Ina’s youngest son, Graham, who had recently finished a business degree and was about to write his final chartered accountancy exam, announced, to the horror of his parents, that it was not the career he wanted for himself. She recalls Graham nonchalantly remarking: “Let’s go into business together. You can cook, and I can count. So, what is the problem?”

And so, a very special entrepreneurial relationship between mother and son came into being, which has served as the foundational strength of the business ever since.

From those early days in a garage almost a generation ago, this small, but highly respected cookery school morphed into a fledgling food-manufacturing business in 1990.

Never the risk taker, the late Ted Paarman made the uncharacteristically bold, but brave decision to aid his determined wife and youthfully idealistic, ambitious son in their start-up venture. He invested his hard-earned retirement savings, which, along with the income from Ina’s first self-published cookbook, Cook with Ina Paarman, sowed the seeds for what would grow into the now legendary Paarman Foods. 

In the years since, the business has become a household name with an enviable international reputation for putting quality and flavour first. It now exports Ina Paarman’ Spices, Seasonings, Sauces, and more to 32 countries worldwide.