Peggi Whiting, Master Sushi Chef

From Restaurateur to Teriyaki Sauce Mogul

by

Steve Osborne

Former owner of the Ichiban Sushi restaurant, Peggi Whiting was the only Caucasian female sushi chef trained in Japan. But after 18 years in the demanding restaurant business, her desire to spend more time with her children sent her spinning off into a related yet very different career. As the founder and sensei of the Seal Sama Teriyaki Sauce line, she reveals the challenges she faced when making the shift from one industry to another….

“I sold the restaurant in 2005 and took a year off to decide what to do. But all my good friends and customers kept dropping by to buy sauces from me. So I decided to market my sauce line. “Even though I knew my sauces very well and had a customer base that would buy them, I didn’t know how to actually produce, market and distribute them. That was a very different set of skills than I had developed for my restaurant business. It was a learning curve. I mean, how do you get a bar code onto your labels so they can be scanned at grocery stores? There were so many little things that I never had to deal with before.

“Fortunately, my vice president, Jason Flower, is extremely talented on research and the Internet. He used the Internet to find out how to get a license, program the bar code and so on.

“As we were looking around for help, we discovered Utah’s Own, a state program designed to support Utah companies. They helped us with issues like the nutritional regulations, and provided other wonderful assistance.

“It’s important not to beat yourself up when you make mistakes. We went ahead not knowing everything. We were so naïve! I had my ad agent design my labels and we printed them not knowing there were certain regulations for the nutritional information on the label. So the first labels we printed couldn’t be used.

“But I learned from my previous business that you have to just keep plugging along. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you think they’re going to make you look stupid.

“Getting good help, taking advantage of available support organizations, having the courage to take the leap into unknown territory, not beating yourself up when you mess up, and not being afraid to ask ‘stupid’ questions – those are the keys to moving into an new area of business.”