Hi, I live on Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. I feel lucky enough to live in the most beautiful part of the world and get to spend lots of time with my family outside, in the water or on the side of a mountain. My family and I are very involved in the local trail running community where we volunteer many hours a year, maintaining trails and helping at trail running events. My family and trail running are my passion in life.
My mission in life is another topic.
I grew up in a small family-run business, working with my mother. When I was a child my mom was an aspiring hippy, and when she decided to go to work when I was an adolescent, her passion to fix the world blended with her new capitalistic venture. Her influence on me made me realize that you could have morals and make money at the same time. In the early days of my career in housewares, I was passionate about quality goods and fortunately, we lived in a very affluent area that supported our niche business. This allowed me to bring in many different brands and test for the best results. My customers grew to trust my opinion and appreciated my geekiness for cookware brands.
Many years later, I ventured out on my own, starting Cook Culture. From the beginning of this business, my goal was to rid the world of chemical-coated cookware. This was the late 2000’s and people were becoming aware of the dangers of chemicals in anything in the kitchen. My team and I worked tirelessly to deliver very detailed information on how to care for chemical-coated alternative cookware – specifically iron cookware.
We grew to 4 stores in 3 cities and sold a large amount of lifetime cookware. I was happy with the success but I felt I was not reaching enough people. Change was too slow for me.
I started on YouTube around 2014, but didn’t understand how to properly use the platform or how to build good videos or be consistent, but I was learning.
Then came COVID. The world changed and everyone was cooking at home. Our online business exploded but more importantly, the need for good information was evident. I was getting dozens of emails a day from customers asking me to help them do whatever in the kitchen. The only way I could help everyone at the same time was to make videos that could address the main questions. This changed everything.
COVID relaxed, and people started shopping in stores again, but YouTube was just getting started. Without planning it, I had built a community on YouTube, and this was way more than my local customers interacting with me. We were getting inquiries for products from all around the world and I needed to figure this out. Fortunately, the process of COVID also helped improve technology and we met the demand.
Fast forward again, and Cook Culture is now a digital company. We no longer have stores and we only stock our essential products. More of our retail relationships are based on dropshipping or affiliate programs. We’re now more of a marketing company than a retailer, which is fine by me. I get to dream up new videos, help people with their cookware problems and spend time on other passions and ideas.
I’m always available and love to hear from people. Send me a note if I can be of any help to you,
Jed