The C-Word: Mister Kitchen
Mister Kitchen’s Daan Faber talks food & creativity.
As part of VBAT C-Word talks, we welcomed Daan Faber, 1/3 of Mister Kitchen. For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, Mister Kitchen is a food agency made up of Daan Faber, Maarten Hoekstra, and Igor Sorko, three close-knit friends who traded in their bland day jobs for an enriched life of travelling the world, and honing their skills in the kitchen.
Today they are food journalists, recipe writers, citizens of the world, food innovators, events organisers, and of course, fantastic cooks. They’ve worked with everyone in the industry from Albert Heijn to MacDonalds, they’ve even worked with VBAT a couple of times. But, to put it simply –and please excuse the cliché– they’re just three guys who decided to do what they love for a living.
Humble beginnings
And all of this began in a student house in Groningen. Faber began his talk by recounting the origins of Mister Kitchen. Daan, Maarten and Igor were flatmates at University, where they lived with 5 others when they discovered their passion for cooking. The students lived on the same road as a daily fresh food market (like the Albert Cuypmarkt). This market would be the fuel to feed the fire, as the three friends began creating more and more extravagant dishes, armed with their ingredients from the market. They must have built up quite a reputation on the market after a while, if the local fishmonger couldn’t sell a certain fish that day he’d just give it to the students at the end of the road, they’d always find a use for it. Faber told us about the time they had all written down their dream jobs on the back of a beer mat (in typical student fashion). They had all written a job that revolved around food.
But when university finished, the three friends parted ways to pursue careers more relevant to their studies (Daan & Igor studied Law, and Maarten Economics) and it seemed that would be it for their dream of a life in the kitchen. But one by one, they each quit their career jobs in pursuit of their dream. At some point, while all this job quitting was taking place, Daan and Maarten published their first student cook book, by students for students — admittedly this was published a few years after they had left university, but lets not get pedantic. And then, few years after the first book, because — as Daan admitted — they wanted to go on holiday, they wrote their second book, a travel cookbook. And shortly after this second publication, Mister Kitchen was born.
Present day
Fast forward a decade, and business has never been better. The trio now have a spot writing stories and recipes for Delicious. Magazine, they’ve set up a annual food festival in Amsterdam: De Rollende Keuken (Rolling Kitchens), they’ve developed menus for restaurants, and they’ve crafted several products for Albert Heijn (including their hugely successful peanut butter).
Faber attributed their success to a set of values. Faber said that Mister Kitchen hated “Brand Values”, but they liked to stick by some personal ones– to which a fellow VBAT-er pointed out that funnily enough, they sounded a lot like Brand Values. But Brand Values or not, this is the ‘mantra’ of Mister Kitchen:
Do it yourself
The age old idiom; if you want something done right, do it yourself. Faber explained that they got into the food industry as they thought they could have the ability to make a real impact. The trio never got into the business so they could employ other people to make the impact, and they certainly didn’t do it so they could spend their days managing said people. Instead Mister Kitchen has matured relationships with a network of excellent freelance collaborators, so any job that requires a specialist skill can be taken on by someone from the network.
Rabarcello, Mister Kitchen’s rhubarb liquor was born from this mentality, Daan had been wanting to make a liquor for some time, whilst Igor and Maarten didn’t share his enthusiasm. His solution was to simply learn how to make a rhubarb liquor himself. He bought the necessary equipment and got to work, when he hit a road block he couldn’t experiment his way through, he called upon an ex-intern of his who had some skill in distilling to lend a helping hand. By the end of it, Faber had a created a unique liquor which made it onto supermarket shelves, and which was sought after internationally by cocktail-makers.
Fuck the focus
There’s nothing wrong with being a jack of all trades. Mister Kitchen have always prided themselves with being able to make anything in the Kitchen, it’s the reason their portfolio of clients and jobs is so broad, and you never know where an opportunity might take you. Take their peanut butter range. They had never made it before, it wasn’t a speciality of theirs before it made it onto supermarket shelves. After the success of their sausages, Albert Heijn approached them looking for an exciting variation on classic unflavoured peanut butter, and they delivered. Now their peanut butter is one of Albert Heijns best sellers.
The best digital is physical
In the present day, advertising revolves around digital advertising. Complex digital algorithms have ensured that web adverts and digital platform micro-influencers are the most efficient way to sell yourself. While Mister Kitchen recognised this, they’ve always believed the best way to persuade anyone to buy their product is for them to taste it. Luckily, they’ve found a way to combine the two and it costs virtually nothing. Send your delicious food –maybe a t-shirt — to the Vloggers and the Instagrammers, let the taste take care of the rest. A few weeks later you’ll have a video on YouTube about your produce, or a post on Instagram.
Go with your gut
Mister Kitchen has never believed in market research, they believe their own instincts as disgruntled consumers are enough to fuel their projects. The ambition was to make retail food better for average consumer, not for the few, not for the corporation. I found this way of thinking quite refreshing, we shouldn’t always rely on market research to quantify what the consumer really needs.
That’s not to say that Mister Kitchen doesn’t conduct some form of research with their products. Every year they host the Rolling Kitchens at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, where they showcase their food to a huge audience, face-to-face. Not only do they find out which recipes are the favourites, they also provide a fantastic weekend of food and entertainment for the masses.
I’m somewhat of a food fanatic myself, and I found this talk to be intriguing, especially as the way I got into cooking was also at University, living in a house of 7 guys, letting our imagination run wild for what we’d cook that evening. It’s inspiring to see a hobby turn into a career; Mister Kitchen’s passion for what they do is something we could all learn from. Their work ethics are also something to admire. They’re sincere, they put quality first over anything else, and always ensure the consumer gets the best they can deliver.
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written by John Skead, Creative Intern at VBAT
edited by Connie Fluhme, PR at VBAT
