Picture a Tupperware party except with spices, salad-dressing mixes and other condiments.
Sylvie Rochette did, about 15 years ago. Now she presides over a growing empire of about 9,000 consultants who sell more than $40-million of her wares annually across Canada.
Ms. Rochette started the business in the basement of her family home in Victoria, B.C. For the last five years, Victorian Epicure Inc. has operated from an idyllic 33-hectare farm in North Saanich, about 30 kilometres from the city. The company now employs about 160 people at this “home office” in jobs that include testing recipes, packaging the products, marketing, research and development, graphic design and information technology.
“She went from craft shows to selling wholesale to now selling through independent direct saleswomen, and the company has just really taken off from there,” said Ms. Rochette’s daughter, Amelia Warren, who is now the company’s chief executive officer.
Originally from Clermont, Quebec, Ms. Rochette, 55, came to B.C. 30 years ago and was working as a docent at the provincial legislature when friends encouraged her to try selling her concoctions. So she loaded her blends of spice mixes into her ancient Mercedes station wagon and took them to farmers markets and the local fall fair.
“I always had an affinity for cooking, coming from the east and coming from a family of foodies,” Ms. Rochette said during a phone interview from San Francisco as she waited to board a flight to Mexico.
The array of fresh fruits and vegetables available in B.C. and the many ethnic restaurants she discovered in Vancouver, where she first lived after coming out west, piqued her interest in food. What inspired her to begin selling her wares, though, was the need for a little extra income while working at home to raise her two children.
Ms. Warren, 25, said her mom’s initial motivation was to make quick, healthy meals for her two children. Ms. Rochette also wanted to be more efficient in the kitchen so she could have more time with her kids.
Victorian Epicure was founded in 1991 and at first products were sold wholesale. The business didn’t really take off, though, until 1996 when it adopted a direct-sales model similar to the one Tupperware made famous. The wholesale business was successful, but it demanded that Ms. Rochette spend too much time on the road, away from her children. Which defeated one of her main reasons for going into business in the first place.
“I even considered quitting. But I said no. I said this is such a good product, I need to find a way to get it into people's hands.”
That's when she realized that if she couldn't clone herself as a sales person, she could clone her way of marketing.
“The one-on-one selling is the perfect vehicle, perfect model to sell this product. When I had someone in front of me, nine out of 10 people purchased my product. So if I could re-create that times several thousand, I believed that this had a great future,” Ms. Rochette said. “Now instead of having one Sylvie selling the products, there are 9,000 Sylvies selling the products.”
Ms. Rochette began by selling four spice dip mixes: lemon-dilly, herb and garlic, sun-dried tomato, and curry. Victorian Epicure now sells 300 Epicure Selections products, many of them made from materials Ms. Rochette collected in her travels around the world. They include salad dressings, jellies, seasonings for salsa and pasta sauces, and herbs and spices for international cuisines, such as North African and Thai dishes. Other recent additions are wine jellies made of wine produced from grapes grown on four-hectares of vineyards planted on the North Saanich property since Epicure’s arrival.
The company also sells cookware and kitchen gadgets as compliments to the food products.
