Meet Christopher Esquilin

We were lucky to catch up with Christopher Esquilin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Christopher, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I started my meal prep business back in 2023. I have no formal culinary training and really struggled with self doubt on whether my Cooking skills would be up to par with other chefs.

I started out small with family and a small amount of clients to get feedback and figure out areas in which I could improve. I also continued to watch Gordon Ramsey masterclass videos and other chef tips to broaden my cooking knowledge.

As I have received feedback from clients, I started to beleive in my cooking skill and used that confidence to keep pushing forward.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

We started Phoenix Cooking back in 2023. We are a 100% Gluten-free meal prep, baking, and catering operation.

We have a physical location at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market which has been integral to our business. One of our core values is working with local farmers and sourcing local ingredients wherever possible.

Over the last couple years we have continued to add more products, offer custom macro meals for fitness competitors and athletes, and plan to have more pickup locations in the near future.

Our market store hours are Saturdays from 8am-2pm and Sundays from 9am-2pm

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

3 qualities that were key for us were perseverance, networking, and adaptability.

We experienced many challenges while trying to figure out things especially in the first year. Networking was key as we could talk to other business owners and mentors to get advice.

We have made changes and added variety to meet client demands which has helped us grow our business.

For those starting out. My advice is to come up with your business plan, and focus on what things you currently have that you can get started with. You can fine tune and make improvements as you go

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

Expanding our product line. We realized that clients need more options and variety to choose from. We expanded the menu to offer standard and low carb meals, dairy free, choice of proteins, choice of vegetables etc.

Adding more variety has helped us gain new customers

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