Terri-Ann Brown-Palmer: The KukUp expert

At the helm of KukUp Kreations is 35-year-old Kingstonian Terri-Ann Brown-Palmer, a woman determined to offer customers tasty and original culinary creations.

“At Immaculate I did food and nutrition at the CXC level and got a grade one. I was also first in my class,” she tells All Woman.

“I started my first business managing a small restaurant while in my final year at the University of the West Indies. I worked there full-time after graduating.”

With a double major in economics and management studies, Brown-Palmer then went on to complete a master’s degree at the University of New Orleans.

After graduating she started experimenting in the kitchen, cooking and baking.

“It was then that my passion for cooking was rekindled and I decided to teach myself as much as possible,” she says.

To learn more about pastry making, she enrolled in the intensive French pastry making programme offered at Le Cordon Bleu Paris Culinary Arts School in France.

“That for me was an amazing experience. When I finished in 2010, I came home and it was there that KukUp Kreations was born.”

She says trying to be a business owner as well as a mother is one challenge she battles with daily.

“I must admit that is it a hard balance,” shares the mother of one daughter, who is expecting her second child in the coming weeks.

“It wasn’t easy to get to where I am now. It has been a journey to get to this point and I have much further to go.”

KukUp Kreations supplies pastries to restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and caterers. The company is also a recipe developer, creating and producing recipes for local distributors.

Brown-Palmer reached a turning point in her career recently as she was chosen by the Vital Voices Global Partnership Fellowship programme as one their Latin American and Caribbean fellows.

“For me personally this has been an amazing achievement. Being accepted as a fellow, the training has been immeasurable,” she said.