Chef, entrepreneur and staunch advocate for addressing food insecurity in Jamaica, Peter Ivey combined his social advocacy and entrepreneurial spirit to create the PIII (P3) Culinary Kit, last year. The groundbreaking venture provides students with quality culinary supplies in a convenient way while introducing them to a social activation component aiming to foster the next generation of socially-minded chefs.

“What we have done is partner with culinary programmes, food and nutrition programmes to deliver everything that the student will need in one convenient kit,” said Ivey.

“As far as we know, this does not exist in Jamaica. Before us, a student would have to collect a supplies list and a book list from their school once they enrolled in a culinary programme and they would go out and buy their uniform and buy their supplies and come back to start school.”

The Jamaican businessman, who owns and operates The Reggae Chefs, a New York-based personalised chef service, started PIII Culinary Limited, the company behind the kit, to operate virtually, allowing students to make their orders online.

Students often have to travel to various stores and outlets to buy a wide variety of supplies to fulfill their requirements for a culinary programme. Such items include chef’s hats, jackets, uniforms, knife sets, knife kits, knife cases, sharpening stones, scales, plates, pans and other utensils. Lists can include up to 50 items.

“Through our partnership with UTech and Jamaica College we have access to their lists and we put everything that the student will require in one convenient kit,” Ivey explained. “So a student is able to receive everything in one place because we have already been privy to what their programme requires.”

Ivey, who founded Mission:FoodPossible (M:FP), a Forbes magazine-featured non-profit organisation launched in 2017 that trains schools on how to creatively prepare meals using more local crops, and who authored a children’s book called Dasheen Island to educate children about food security, incorporated a social engagement component in PIII.

“Once you’re wearing a PIII uniform, once you’ve purchased a kit from us, you have access to our food security newsletter called ‘Provisions’ in which you can be featured or for which you can provide content,” Ivey revealed.

“You have access to participating in Mission:FoodPossible (M:FP) every year. You have access to interact and network with our social-minded chefs in our network. You also have access to our workshops and virtual culinary chats that we do. So these are just some of the opportunities that purchasing a culinary kit will unlock for our students at no extra cost.”

According to the entrepreneur, students who own the PIII Culinary Kit participated in the book launch of Dasheen Island in 2021. They also participated in M:FP in Westmoreland in 2022.

“In full PIII gear, students and kit owners interacted with the Westmoreland community and made nutritious and creative dishes alongside M:FP chefs in front of local media,” said Ivey.

Even the convenience provided by the PIII Culinary Kit offered the kind of social assistance embodied in Ivey’s social programmes and this was illustrated in how the kit helped students and their parents during the COVID-19 health crisis.

“If you look at the time frame in which PIII Culinary Kit came to be, it was right in the middle of the pandemic and so we were able to be a source of convenience for parents and students who at the time did not want to go out into stores to join lines and buy supplies because it just wasn’t safe to do so,” the food security advocate explained.

“So when schools started to partially open, we were like a breath of fresh air for parents and students who could pay their money and everything would be in one place.”

Ivey claims that by putting all the items in one kit they are on an average 35 per cent to 45 per cent cheaper than if all the items were bought separately.

“PIII Culinary Kit items are items that are chef-tested by myself and other chefs in the network who actually use these things in the field,” Ivey insisted. “The chef’s jacket that I use in my work is a PIII chef’s jacket. The chef jackets that my chef friends use are PIII chef’s jackets. Currently, all of our uniform pieces are made locally in Jamaica.”

Ivey envisions PIII Culinary Kit expanding across Jamaica and to other Caribbean markets over the next three to five years.

He sees PIII Culinary Kit and Mission:FoodPossible as inextricably linked.

“A chef-led hunger charity at the heart of a culinary supplies company will create chefs that will not only be leaders in M:FP but creators and leaders of their own social purpose journey,” the entrepreneur enthused. “Students have expressed to us that the PIII Culinary Kit is where they first learn in-depth about food security and what they can do about it.”

From a purely business perspective Ivey reports that he is satisfied with the company’s performance to date.

“We are doing well with room to improve in a few areas such as logistics to ensure we are not growing faster than we can supply our customers,” he outlined. “You can find students wearing PIII Culinary uniforms in institutions such as UTech, Jamaica College and Institute of Internationally Recognised Qualifications (IIRQ).”

“PIII’s leadership team are all past students of Jamaica College so to be able to start this revolution with our alma mater then expand to other programmes is something we are extremely proud of,” Ivey added.

The businessman, who describes himself as a “revolutionary disguised as an entrepreneur”, summed up the socially-motivated rationale behind his PIII Culinary Kit with an anecdote about when he was once asked after giving a speech how he could get other chefs to activate their social purpose and not just think about the money and popularity of a successful career.

“We would have to get them when they are young,” Ivey answered.