No Compromise Means No Compromise | How Solina Naidoo Built the Community Before the Product
Stefan:
By the time Solina Naidoo launched Perima’s Kitchen, she had already spent years earning the trust most new consumer brands must build from scratch.
What began as a more efficient way to share her recipes than responding individually through WhatsApp groups grew into an online community of more than 350,000 people.
Stefan le Roux sat down with Solina to explore how she built Perima’s Kitchen from a lockdown cooking community into a nationally stocked retail brand.
The Good Business: Where did your relationship with food begin?
Solina:
I grew up in Arena Park, Chatsworth, which I’m very proud of. At the time, it was a very Indian community. We walked to school and back—not like how the kids get dropped off nowadays.
For most of us growing up, we were nurtured by our mothers and our families, and the women in our family were always cooking. My mum, her younger sister and her elder sisters all played a part in that. Food was central to everything. That was how they showed their love. Even at school, I used to bring mutton curry sandwiches. They were cold, but they were the best thing ever.
I learnt to cook on my own when I was about 12 years old. I could make a mean mutton curry. My mum worked, but she would often cook in the morning before leaving, so we usually had food prepared when we got home.
My mum’s sisters were also a very important part of my life. My mum’s elder sisters are who we call Perimas, and that is where the name Perima’s Kitchen came from. It is a Tamil term for your mother’s elder sisters.
Stefan: What did you do after finishing school?
Solina:
I explored different areas growing up and was exposed to hospitality very early. I worked in the spa industry and was a spa manager aboard luxury cruise liners for almost three years. I travelled to more than 60 countries while I was in my twenties, which really opened my eyes to the world.
I was able to meet people from different cultures, and it helped me connect with people on a different wavelength. It also gave me a very different understanding of the service industry and the importance of creating an experience for people.
I came back to South Africa with the money I had saved and opened a beauty clinic in Umhlanga. I was also doing real estate and did really well in it. I really did multitask. Looking back, each of those experiences gave me a different skill set that I now draw on as an entrepreneur.
Stefan: How did lockdown lead you back to cooking?
Solina:
We had returned from Mauritius before COVID hit. I was doing holiday rentals, so when nobody could move around, the occupancy rate went to zero. At the same time, everybody was sitting at home cooking. It became a type of release from the reality around us.
I used to post pictures of what I had cooked on Facebook, and people would ask me for the recipes. I was replying individually to more than 200 messages when my daughter said, “Mum, this is not sustainable.”
I kept saying that method and technique were just as important as the ingredients. She told me, “Just video it and post it.” That was how my social media journey started.
I did not dare show my face in the beginning. I was thinking, “Who are these people going to say is this girl who thinks she knows how to cook our authentic food?” I started posting without my face and then slowly gave them glimpses of me.
I learnt whilst making mistakes. I learnt how to improve my content, use my camera, edit and post the videos. Being part of initiatives such as TikTok Rising Voices and YouTube Black Voices gave me the confidence to continue. There was nobody in the industry who looked like me doing it at the time, so I was paving my own way and learning from the things I got wrong.
I never got into it thinking I was going to monetise it in any way, shape or form. It was purely to help people cook and to share the heritage recipes I had grown up with.
Stefan: You were approached by established spice brands while your audience was still small. Why turn those opportunities down?
Solina:
It was so exciting. I was just starting out, and these big spice brands were approaching me. They wanted to send me these beautiful hampers, and all I needed to do in exchange was make a video and showcase the products.
Then it became harder because they had my rate card and started offering to pay me as well. When I still said no, they asked, “Okay, how much do you want?” I had to explain that it was not about the amount.
It was still very early for me, even when I reached 100,000 followers. I did not want to say there would be a conflict of interest because what I wanted to create was still years away, but instinctively I knew that one day there could be.
I was authentically using other spices, and I would never go back and criticise the spices I used before. I learnt from them. I learnt what I liked, what I did not like, and how I could eventually make mine better. Those were all learning experiences.
Saying no was very difficult, but it helped clear the maze and showed me the path I was taking. Sometimes I did not fully understand why I was saying no, but I knew I had to. In hindsight, I realise those decisions were helping me protect the credibility of something I hadn’t even built yet.
Stefan: What problem did you eventually decide the product needed to solve?
Solina:
My community has always been very engaged and vocal about what they want. They kept asking me for a recipe book, and I said, “No, I have to do something different.” The recipe book will come, but I needed to do something different first.
I was multitasking between social media, family life, filming, editing, and posting. I was working seven days a week. At the end of the day, all I wanted was authentic-tasting food that I could enjoy with my family without compromising on flavour.
I started looking for something that could make my life easier, and it didn’t exist. I realised I was experiencing the same problems that so many people in my community were experiencing.
The first was simply having all the different spices readily available. The second was knowing exactly how much of each spice to use. And the third was consistency—once you got the flavour right, how did you make sure you could achieve that same result every single time?
That became the problem I wanted to solve. I wanted to take away the guesswork. You didn’t have to worry about whether you were missing a spice, how much of each one to add, or whether you would be able to recreate the same flavour again. Everything was already done for you, using high-quality, premium spices in the right proportions to give you consistency every time.
I wasn’t reinventing the wheel because, in our community, we already have something called a masala, which is a blend of spices. I was taking something deeply rooted in my heritage and culture, keeping that heritage intact, but simplifying the process.
You can make your Durban mutton curry, but you can also make a stir-fry, use it in an air fryer, put it on a braai or make a potjie. It takes away the overwhelm and guesswork and gives you the confidence to make a variety of dishes.
South African Indian cooking is completely different. Even if you go to India, you are not going to find our food there. The taste profile and depth of flavour are different. It is ours.
And I think it has also become part of a much broader South African heritage. It is not only mine because I am Indian. The table is becoming bigger, and food has this incredible ability to connect people.
Stefan: What was the biggest hurdle in the early days?
Solina:
Very early on, there were moments in the development process where I wasn’t completely happy with something and had to make difficult decisions. Those moments gave me sleepless nights because when you’re building a business, every decision has a consequence.
They also taught me something very important very early on: if I wasn’t completely happy with something, I had to be willing to say no. It helped me understand just how important quality, integrity and flavour were to me and the standards I wanted to set for the brand.
I would imagine my Perimas asking me, “Are you going to be happy with this?” And that became my benchmark. No compromise means no compromise. There is no “but” after no compromise. You cannot say, “No compromise, but let’s just do this one.”
Holding yourself to those values can be challenging, and if my gut tells me something isn’t right, I have to trust it.
Stefan: How have you approached scaling the business without trying to control every function yourself?
Solina:
At the moment, I’m building the business as a founder without an internal team, and I’ve realised very quickly that collaboration is key. I work with and outsource to specialists in areas such as manufacturing because I recognised early on that I don’t need to do everything myself.
To do everything myself, I would have needed equipment, logistics, distribution and packaging. There are so many different elements involved. I had to say, “Solina, just do what you are good at.”
I realised quite early that scaling wasn’t going to mean owning or controlling every function. It meant understanding where I added the most value and collaborating with people who brought expertise in areas I didn’t need to build myself.
At the same time, I am learning about manufacturing, packaging, distribution, logistics and retail. I believe that even when you outsource, as a founder you still need to understand how every part of your business works. Once I have that knowledge, I can make informed decisions about what we eventually build internally as the business grows.
There is also a lot involved in the food industry. You have food safety and all the different compliance requirements, which are very important elements of having a good product.
A lot of people come up with a product and then try to build a market around it. My journey happened differently. I had already built a community, listened to what they needed and understood many of the challenges they were experiencing before I created the product. So, in many ways, I built the community before I built the product.
That gave me the opportunity to learn hands-on about what I wanted and did not want. It also helped me understand the challenges around scalability and sourcing the right products.
Outsourcing to teams that could do those things for me was the best way to learn while keeping the vision in place. These are only two of five products in my planned range. I decided to go to market with two, and there is still more to come.
Teamwork is so important, as is trusting people to do what they are good at. If somebody can do something better than I can, there is no point trying to replace that expertise simply to save a little on your margin.
It means I can focus on where I add the most value: protecting the quality of the product, creating awareness, developing new products and securing the right endorsements and opportunities, while still understanding the other parts of the business. I don’t enjoy every part of it, but I realise that as a founder I need to understand how it all works and have a holistic view of the business.
Stefan: Across all the different chapters of your career, what has been the common thread?
Solina:
Adaptability. I’ve learnt that adaptability isn’t about becoming something you’re not. It’s about being able to evolve while remaining anchored in who you are.
People sometimes want to put you into a box and say you are only known for one thing. I don’t think you should be afraid of the different skills or experiences you have, because everything has contributed in some way to where I am today.
Had I not been exposed to the world and different foods, I would not have had that understanding. Whenever I got off the ship, the first thing I did was go and eat. I wanted to understand the food and culture. I never thought, “Solina, one day you are going to be doing this.”
During COVID, I understood what my community needed and how I could help them. That helped me understand more about what my purpose could be.
There is a certain amount of perseverance needed in life, but I’ve also learnt that there is a balance between perseverance and understanding what is genuinely aligned with you. Sometimes the answer isn’t to keep pushing harder and harder. Sometimes it is about being true to yourself and recognising when another path makes more sense.
When something feels more in sync and aligned with what you are doing, it makes sense. There will still be challenges, but those challenges are often the moments that force you to think differently.
I sometimes say that I bless my challenges because so many of them have given way to ideas and opportunities I had never considered. They have forced me to become more innovative and taught me that there is almost always another way to do something.
Stefan: What makes you optimistic about South Africa?
Solina:
The diversity. We’re like one big melting pot—or should I say, one big curry pot.
What makes me optimistic is the way South Africans continue to adapt, innovate and find ways forward, even when things are difficult. We have this incredible ability to connect with one another and somehow even find humour in the most intense situations.
Having experienced so many different parts of the world, I can honestly say there is absolutely nothing like South Africa. We have so much richness in our people, our cultures and our food. Bunny chow is us. You get shisanyamas, kotas and all these different foods that have come from our different communities and become part of a much bigger South African story.
That is what gives me optimism. We have challenges, but we also have incredibly resilient, creative and innovative people.
Our heritage isn’t limited by who we are individually; it’s something we all share. Everybody brings their own experiences and something of their own to the table, and I think there is so much possibility in that.
Stefan:
Perima’s Kitchen may have begun with the food of Naidoo’s childhood, but its growth has depended on distinctly entrepreneurial choices: listening before selling, resisting opportunities that threatened a longer-term vision and accepting that scale requires both control and collaboration.
Her adaptability has allowed the business to change form; her refusal to compromise has kept its purpose intact.
