Recipe for success

Two years ago, ready for a change and still charged up from her brush with TV cooking fame, Bekhor launched vegetariangourmet.com, where she posts two or three recipes a week. They’re approachable, flavourful and concisely presented.

Then one night, Bekhor’s husband of 12 years, Emmanuel Castiel, bit into one of her legendary burgers and declared she should market them. Being in sales and marketing, he had a shrewd sense they would be crowd pleasers.

What followed was experimentation, taste testing, finding a commercial kitchen and designing the boxes exactly to Bekhor and Castiel’s specifications. “The day we got our packaging was our wedding anniversary,” she says.

By then they were both working full time on the venture and approaching local stores. They found a Quebec distributor that specializes in healthy frozen foods. Today Bekhor supplies them with nearly 10,000 burgers a month to deliver around the province.

Attention to detail

One of the biggest challenges with expanding a home recipe is how to “batch up,” that is, to make the recipe work for large quantities. It was one stressful thing to batch up her cookies on TV by tossing in handfuls of cardamom, but another entirely to ensure consistent results of her patties when making hundreds at a time.

“First they were falling apart, and when they did hold, they were too dry,” Bekhor says.

Her teaching experience helped Bekhor provide direction to staff at the commercial kitchen. “We were able to break things down into really tiny steps,” she says.

Used to teaching to different skill levels and interests, she was able to explain and document the exact steps that go into making her burgers.

Ingredients must be scrupulously prepared and weighed. Variations like the sweetness of the carrots or the day’s humidity can affect the end result. Each batch of burgers is tasted by either Bekhor or the kitchen leaders who know exactly what she’s looking for, and they can perform impromptu tweaks like adding more lemon or water or fresh herbs.

“When you’re not working with powders, there can be a lot of variation,” Bekhor says.

Her attention to detail has paid off. When Bekhor first did demos at stores, managers warned her that few customers buy on the spot. Instead, about 80 per cent of those who sampled her food bought multiple packs.

A polite and cheery sort, Bekhor thanked each. Yet most customers, relieved to find a seriously good veggie burger, replied with a hearty, “No, thank you!”

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