From side hustle to strategic growth: how Jez Guyanese Cuisine is learning where to scale

How analysing profitability and competitive advantage is helping Jez Guyanese Cuisine focus on the right opportunities for growth

When Maleka Harcharran launched Jez Guyanese Cuisine in 2023, the plan was relatively simple: create an additional source of income alongside her part-time role in higher education. 

A trained nurse who later moved into teaching, Maleka had struggled to find the flexibility she needed around childcare. At the same time, she had noticed something missing in her local area around St Neots in Cambridgeshire: authentic Guyanese food was difficult to find. 

She began selling at the local market square, before demand took the business into pop-ups, pubs, and events across the surrounding area. What started as a side hustle quickly became something much bigger. 

Today, Jez Guyanese Cuisine provides premium catering for weddings and private events, alongside festivals, takeaway delivery, and growing demand for individual products such as roti, dalpuri, and pepper sauce. 

But increasing demand brought a new challenge: working out which opportunities were actually worth pursuing. 

Being busy is not the same as being profitable 

Before completing the Help to Grow: Management Course at Anglia Ruskin University, Maleka admits she tended to accept almost every opportunity that came her way. 

‘I was taking every business that came my way. Someone says, “Will you go all the way to Cromer?” So, I go there and I do a street-food style wedding for £2,000. It wasn’t until after that I asked myself, why am I broke after this?’ 

It was a question that pushed her to look more closely at the numbers behind the business. 

Maleka joined the Help to Grow: Management Course knowing finance was an area she needed to strengthen. Despite plenty of work coming in, she did not always have a clear picture of where the money was going or which parts of the business were generating the strongest returns. 

Working with her mentor, she has started separating the different arms of the company and examining each individually. 

The Sustainable Business Model Canvas, explored on module one of the course, was particularly useful. Instead of treating Jez Guyanese Cuisine as one operation, Maleka began distinguishing between weddings, private catering, festivals, and takeaways and looking at the income each generates. 

Looking beyond turnover 

That shift has changed how Maleka thinks about growth. 

A festival might generate £6,000 in sales, for example, but leave around £800 once stock, travel, and other costs have been taken into account. By contrast, a £15,000 premium wedding booking could potentially generate around £4,000 in profit. 

For Maleka, the important figure is therefore no longer simply turnover. It is what remains after delivering the work. 

That reflects the course’s focus on the use of financial metrics. Understanding revenue is important, but so too are profitability, costs, and the amount of time required to service each customer. 

Maleka is even changing the way she handles enquiries. Previously, she might spend significant time producing detailed invoices or estimates for every potential customer. Now, she will often provide an approximate price first, recognising that thousands of pounds of unconverted quotes can represent hours of work with no return. 

‘It’s looking at the profitability of each,’ she says. ‘Which arm is more profitable than the other?’ 

Finding the value in being different 

The Help to Grow: Management Course has also helped Maleka better understand what makes the business distinctive. 

Using the VRIO Framework from module 1, she began thinking about the value and rarity of what Jez Guyanese Cuisine offers. Her conclusion was that the rarity itself is important: authentic Guyanese cuisine remains difficult to find in much of the area. 

‘It took me a while to clock on that the rarity is Guyanese Caribbean cuisine at this end. That is why we’re so sought after.’ 

That insight supports her move towards higher-value work rather than competing purely on price. 

Choosing what to scale 

Weddings are now one area Maleka is particularly keen to grow, with a £15,000 premium catering booking already secured for next year. Meanwhile, the newly launched takeaway arm is being monitored to see whether demand and repeat orders remain consistent before she commits to larger fixed costs such as a commercial kitchen. 

Her longer-term ambition is to take products including pepper sauce, roti, and dalpuri to a much wider UK audience. But perhaps the biggest shift is in how she defines growth. 

‘It’s not about getting 100 bookings,’ Maleka says. ‘It’s looking at the value of those bookings.’ 

For a business that started as a side hustle only three years ago, that change in mindset could be crucial. Rather than simply saying yes to more work, Maleka is learning to identify which opportunities create the most value and build the next stage of Jez Guyanese Cuisine around them. 

 

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