Serial Entrepreneur Brings Jamaica to Your Doorstep

Chef, entrepreneur, and culinary ambassador, Peter Ivey, is fondly referred to as the Anthony Bordain of Jamaica.

Photo credit: Shawn Walsh

Peter Ivey said his mom shipped him off from Jamaica to the USA just out of high school in hopes to preserve his future.

To Peter though the move felt like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. He said he landed in a tough part of New York City and felt more vulnerable and unattached.

“How could moving me away from all my family and all that was familiar be better for me?” he questioned. He couldn’t fathom then how his expression of pop culture signaled trouble to his mom. But she wasn’t about to gamble with his potential and future.

Flash forward a decade and a half later, and today her son epitomizes what it means to be a model citizen for his adopted country, his native land and to youth globally.

As founder of the Reggae Chefs ®, Scattered Jamaica ®, the Passport Dinner Series™, The League of International Chefs Association (TLICA) and Mission Food Possible (M:FP), Peter Ivey has earned the title of serial entrepreneur and is also fondly referred to as the Anthony Bourdain of Jamaica.

Peter Ivey’s enterprises are a lifeline to preserving and promoting Jamaica’s culture at home and abroad.

Image by Shaun Walsh

The work of his most famed brand, The Reggae Chefs ®, is archived in the National Library of Jamaica for its innovation and impact on sharing the Jamaican culture and food globally.

In 2016 the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industries (CACCI) recognized the millennial with its Business Visionary Award. That year he was the recipient of the Business Innovation and Game Changer Award. One year later the Jamaica College alumnus received a Certificate of Special (US) Congressional Recognition for “Outstanding and Invaluable Service to the Community” and the UNESCO Center for Global Education invited him to share tips and strategies of successful entrepreneurship at a Youth Entrepreneurship Conference.

“I believe part of my calling is to learn from my mistakes and then teach others coming up behind me how to avoid those potholes,” said the entrepreneur and innovator who spends a considerable amount of time fulfilling speaking engagements to youth and entrepreneurs globally.

Peter Ivey masterminded The Reggae Chefs, a personal chef and entertainment service that brings Jamaica to customers' doorsteps.

Image by Shaun Walsh

For all his adult triumphs he says he’s indebted to the influence of mentors like “Miss Ana Walker, a very powerful woman in New York who took me under her wings and former New York State Senator Dr. Waldaba Stewart for teaching me the responsibility of entrepreneurship and how to use this platform to better our community. I’m also inspired by Marcus Garvey and his work.”

Innovating Against the Knockoff of Brand Jamaica

Five years ago Peter masterminded The Reggae Chefs ® in direct response to the pervasive knockoff of Jamaican culture and brand Jamaica overseas.

“I lived in Las Vegas briefly and happened on a [stage] show called Reggae in the Desert. I’d never seen so many people who weren’t Jamaicans just consuming our music. As I looked around the perimeter people were selling Jamaican food, Jamaican flags and Jamaican T-shirts. But as I walked around, I realised these people weren’t Jamaicans. I thought it was great that our culture was that influential and that powerful. But then I wondered if there were Jamaicans who would really take on the responsibility to share our culture with the world in a unique way,” he said.

Looking at the man in the mirror, he found his answer and after ruminating over the unifying power of food, came up with The Reggae Chefs ®.

This personal chef and entertainment service provides a fusion of authentic Jamaican culinary and cultural experiences by an all-star team of Jamaicans.

“I know I wanted it to be truly authentic and we were going to put pressure on ourselves to deliver a superior service,” Peter rationalized of his exclusive Jamaican team who had to be versed in the island’s culture and history to serve as ambassadors.

He researched where people went in Jamaica and what they go for and used these preferences to create the “icons of culture” entertainment packages his clients pair with their meals.

The idea caught on immediately with non-Jamaicans curious about the country and the service. Of his compatriots though Peter said it took awhile for Jamaicans to warm to the Reggae Chefs ® .

“Jamaicans funny yuh nuh! Dem seh dem can cook their own food so why hire this service” he quipped. But as word got around, that resistance changed.

“We started to get Jamaicans who lived abroad for a very long time who got wind that we could bring them back to their glory days if they booked the Reggae Chefs ®. [They heard] we could knock some Ludi and Dominoes with them, and in their kitchen cook their favourite dish from dem lickle (small) and not just the fancy stuff,” Peter shared.

“We’ve had people who’ve never been [to the island] use it as an introduction to Jamaica. People who are terminally ill who couldn’t make it back to Jamaica. Some clients are searching for their history, 2nd and 3rd generation [Jamaicans] who have been told they can’t go to where they are from because the crime is so high and so they book the Reggae Chefs® as an entry point into Jamaica,” he shared.

Finding Scattered Jamaica

From their base in New York, the Reggae Chefs ® have also traveled out to clients across the US, Canada, and Europe to bring Jamaica to their doorsteps. That growing interest gave rise to ScatteredJamaica ®, a video series that captures Peter’s travels to far-flung places in search of culinary and cultural connections to Jamaica.

“It started as an idea to authenticate Reggae Chefs® and keep Reggae Chefs ® fresh and different,” Peter explained of their mission to provide a richer cultural experience for their clients.

“We’ve gone searching for the history of Reggae music in New Orleans, searching for the history of porridge in Scotland. In West Africa we went searching for the Ghanaian Duckanoo and how it compares to the Jamaican Duckanoo.”

Bringing it Home

The Scattered Jamaica ® expeditions led to the Passport Dinner Series™ – a biannual dinner party held in New York to showcase and celebrate the cultures with a wider community.

“The program is jam-packed with events and food from both the Jamaican culture and the culture we are discovering side-by-side for the audience to compare. We show pictures, videos, stories, jokes and what made me laugh and what made me cry,” Ivey said.

Continuously learning and innovating, the entrepreneur expanded his skill set to become a trained chef and food safety instructor. Holding community impact top of mind, he then founded The League of International Chefs Association (TLICA) to support and mobilize a global network of food industry professionals to sustain communities by using food and culture to end hunger and poverty.

Mobilizing Against Food Insecurity

In response to the UN’s call for global action to end food insecurity and poverty by 2030, The Reggae Chefs ® and TLICA then launched Mission Food Possible (M:FP) to help educate and feed the food insecure.

Mission: Food Possible was launched in 2017 to address food insecurity and minimize food wastage.

“We are looking at food insecurity in a whole new light using the community, our farmers and ingenuity to change how we consume our foods," says Peter.

For World Food Day 2018, Peter took fellow chefs from around the globe to Jamaica to train educators, canteen staff and parents in the innovative use of highly nutritious local fruits and vegetables he has identified as MVP (Most Valuable Produce). The MVPs come with a nutritional scoring guide and will be central to a lunch program slated to start in 2019 for students identified as food insecure.

"Our Most Valuable Produce scoring guide not only allows us to use the foods that will sustain our community, but preserve Jamaican culinary heritage.

“Honestly as a chef, too, I am excited to be able to once again take staples like breadfruit, green banana, and others and use what I have learnt in my travels to create something new that will benefit the only currency that matters for the future—our children,” Peter said.

Peter encourages a student during the Mission Food Possible launch in Jamaica.

It is undeniable that the brighter future Peter’s mom held for her child has come to fruition. Counting his failures as stepping stones and the impetus for continuing to innovate, the Spanish Town native commented, “I want it to be said that the places where I walked, where I grew up, where I cried, where I have family— those places and by extension hopefully the globe as well—were made better because of the contributions I’ve made.”