So we’re looking for the best developer in the world to join our team of designers and user experience experts. Tall order? Then think about this: the job comes with free cupcakes at least once a week. Nice, hey?
To be more specific, we’re on the hunt for a lead developer with 3+ years experience in PHP, MySQL & jQuery (or other JS) to head up our e-commerce store’s development team. The salary is very competitive, so you’ve got to be out of the ordinary and unquestionably spectacular in your abilities. You may think and dream in code, but we’re hoping that human relationships come in soon after ‘perfectly structured frameworks’ on your list of life’s priorities. We like humans, and having members of our team like us is important.
People have told us, ‘Your website is one of the best e-commerce sites ever… yada-yada-yada.’ It’s not. We know we’ve done a pretty good job to date, but we have a long way to go. There are a million and one developments we have planned to make sure we are giving people the best e-commerce experience possible. And we want you to lead that drive.
We’re based in Cape Town, the best city in the world, so you either live here already or you’re packing your bags for the move. Our offices are in beautiful Westlake and from most locations, getting here happens against the traffic – one of life’s small pleasures.
So if the idea of working with us to push the boundaries of e-commerce floats your boat, please send your CV through to us at jobs@yuppiechef.co.za, and as importantly, an email telling us a little bit about yourself and why you feel you’re the answer we’re looking for.
So this weekend we were wandering through Woolworths and came across their exciting Woolies Lovebird competition, advertised throughout their national network of stores on big posters (thanks for the pic @TalyaGoldberg).
It really is an exciting competition, and we wanted in, so we went online to check it out: www.woolieslovebird.co.za… just as the poster says. But the URL was not registered. What they meant to write was www.woolieslovebirds.co.za. We can only assume that the hangovers from the Woolies New Year’s parties were the cause for this little oversight. So we did something sneaky: we registered it and now we’re holding it ransom.
To get it back, and have us point the address to their competition asap, we’re asking Woolies to match, rand for rand, all donations made towards our 2010 charity, Soil for Life, between now and Valentines Day (and to be nice, we’ll put a limit of R5000 on it). Sound good? Excellent. So we invite all our fans to go ahead and donate R25 or more to support a great cause and make Woolies pay or the lovebirds get it
===
UPDATE: 2 February 2010: TOTAL R9,000
Woolies has broken down in tears and has begged for their lovebirds back. Not only have they agreed to pay the ransom, they have volunteered an extra R2500 towards Soil for Life! Even better, they’ve allowed us to hold onto the web address because they believe this is such a worthy cause – hooray! So donate now to save the lovebirds;)
After our interview this morning on 94.7 Highveld with Jeremy Mansfield, Philips South Africa got hold of us and said they would match a further R10,000 in donations! Thank you, Philips. We are moved. In addition to R5,000 donated by fans this morning since the show, KitchenAid South Africa lent their support and added R2,000 to the pot. If we added more exclamation marks to this paragraph it would start to look silly.
Total raised at the time of writing: R33,100 + R7,500 Woolies Ransom + R10,000 Philips contribution: R50,600!
===
UPDATE: 9 February 2010: TOTAL R66,600
Sanlam Developing Markets called us this morning saying that they have just deposited R10,000 in our account towards Soil for Life! Thank you, Sanlam Developing Markets. Once again we are stunned by the generosity of people out there. Many other people have contributed in the last few days to raise our total to R66,000!
===
UPDATE: 10 February 2010: TOTAL R79,000
Standard Bank Group (@StandardBankGrp) announced today on their blog that they are contributing R10,000 to Soil for Life! Incredible. Thank you Standard Bank Group. Read about it here: http://bit.ly/a716SJ. Total now R79,000.
===
UPDATE: 12 February 2010: TOTAL R92,000
Just received a call this morning from Hayely at Fin24 (@Fin24) saying that they are going to donate R10,000 as well and put the challenge out there other companies in their industry to do the same! Here’s what they had to say:
Fin24.com challenge all media companies, and everyone linked to the industry including our readers, advertising and media agencies, PR companies and investor relations firms to, ahem, dig deep and see love, and gardens, blossom this Valentine’s Day through Soil for Life.
Wow! Total sitting at R92,000. 2 days to go…
===
UPDATE: 14 February 2010: TOTAL R100,050
With 56 minutes to go before the close of Valentine’s day, the donations to Soil for Life from Yuppiechef fans hit the R100,000 mark. Absolutely incredible. For a project that started with a target of R5,000, we have been humbled by your generosity and support. Thank you Yuppiechef fans!
===
Press Coverage
A big shout out to everyone in the press who has covered this story to date. The requests for interviews in print, radio and TV are coming in thick and fast. This is fantastic for Soil for Life, it’s fantastic for us and in a way it’s even pretty cool for Woolies. Anyone who needs more info can contact me (I am Paul) on media@yuppiechef.com. Here are a few of the highlights of the week.
Paul interviewed on Media & Money on CNBC Africa
Mashudu Masutha chats to Paul about the ransom.
94.7 Highveld’s Rude Awakening with Jeremy Mansfield
Soil for Life are a wonderful bunch of people whose mandate is quite simply to ‘heal the soil, heal the plants, and heal the people’. Their main work is in under privileged communities where they teach people how to start their own home gardens, provide on-going support through a team of field workers and over time see them blossom into agricultural experts! Find out more
APPLICATIONS FOR THIS POSITION ARE NOW CLOSED. THANKS.
Yip, we’re growing (again) and we need your help. We’re looking for a passionate food and kitchen tool lover to fill a marketing assistant role at Yuppiechef.
We’re based in Cape Town so you need to be in the area or need to be willing to move to the most beautiful city in the world. We want you to join us as soon as possible. We don’t mind too much about your age or whether you’re a boy or a girl but there are a few things we know we’re looking for:
You’ve had at least 2 years experience in a marketing role and know that caring about customers is the most important thing in life.
Your organizational skills are second to none.
You are a great writer and your English compares to that of the queen, darling.
You get passionate about your work and are willing to work hard (very hard) and have fun at the same time.
You’re outgoing, you like people and people like you.
You’re able to work well under pressure and can deal with several different projects at once with a smile on your face.
The web is your second (or third) home. Facebook, blogs, Twitter and other social media are your weekly staples.
Things that will keep you busy in this role include:
Co-ordinating and executing all our regular marketing activities
Ensuring that our website, newsletters, print advertising, radio advertising, social media campaigns and press communication all talk to each other nicely and campaigns happen when they should
Be involved in awesome campaigns (like this one) for all mediums mentioned above
Working alongside other Yuppiechef team members at trade shows like the Good Food & Wine Show telling the world about who we are. These shows require lots of energy and are great fun. Take a peek here.
Bringing cupcakes and other nice treats into the office every now and then to surprise us and keep us smiling.
If you think you’re cut out for this role or you think you know someone who would be perfect, please drop us a line at jobs@yuppiechef.co.za and tell us a little about yourself, why you think you’d like to work with us and attach your CV for us to have a squizz.
The performances given by the world’s best kitchen tools in 2009 were exemplary. But the Yuppiechef judges have spent many hours behind closed doors and have finally decided on their winners. Victors had to be top sellers in their category, had to receive only compliments from customers in 2009 (and no complaints), needed to be top of the ‘most wished for’ items in our gift registries and had to score highly on in-house product tests. Here they are.
No kitchen should be without this manual food processor. It is the most essential of all knives used in the kitchen. Slicing, mincing and dicing of all kind of food. Perfectly balanced, it’s an extension of your hand.
Best Gadget
In the category of best gadget, the competition was fierce. And the winner is… the FusionBrands IceOrb!
The patented vertical design engineering allows you to make 21 uniquely shaped ice cubes and store 30 cubes within it simultaneously. It can be used to chill wine or as a mini cooler at picnics and is very useful when you’re ‘on the go’. You can also use the lid under the IceOrb® while serving to catch condensation.
Best Tea & Coffee
When the time came for a call to be made in the tea and coffee category, the Le Creuset Traditional Kettle took the honours.
You will no doubt fall in love with this beautiful, cast iron kettle – available in a choice of colours that complement the Le Creuset cookware range.
Best Cookware
More and more people, including the judges, are being converted to Swiss Diamond every day and the Swiss Diamond Frypan has come up trumps in the cookware category. Well done, Swiss Diamond!
Best Appliance
The final prize in the 2009 Best Kitchen Tools awards goes to KitchenAid for their world class Ultra Power Blender.
And that’s a wrap! Thank you all for coming. We hope you enjoyed your evening.
Yip, we are growing and are on the lookout for some much needed help in the office. We’re searching for an office assistant who is friendly, hardworking, outgoing and who is excited by the idea of being part of an enthusiastic team. The position is a junior one with lots of potential to grow with us through the gazillion exciting challenges ahead.
We’re not a normal company and we are not looking for normal people. We are an online store (which is awesome) and we’re based in Westlake, Cape Town (which is here). We work hard, we have fun and we take customer service and the quality of our work very seriously, but we never take ourselves too seriously.
The lucky individual’s duties will include:
Booking in of stock received from our suppliers
Quality control of stock received
Packing clients orders
Hand writing our personalised cards
Ad-hoc telephone customer support and reception duties
General office administration and support
Requirements include:
Excellent attention to detail
Excellent English and hand writing skills
PC literate
Own transport
Organised and systematic
Ability to work well under pressure and during busy periods
If you’re interested or know someone who would be perfect for this role, please forward them this link or drop us a line at jobs@yuppiechef.co.za. Please write a short paragraph telling us who you are and why you think you would be great for this job and attach your CV and anything else you think is important that may sway the opinions of the judges;)
So it’s with some relief that we prepare for this years Good Food & Wine Show JHB with it being the last show of the year. Shows are special to us, they’re wonderful opportunities to meet SA’s yuppie chef’s but man are they tiring! So for the last time in 2009 we’re packing our bags for what is a highly anticipated show. With some great international chefs attending, hundred of exhibitors and most importantly what looks to be thousands of visitors.
So we would love to see you there, if you can come and pay us a visit if you’ll be in the area, we would love to meet you! The show runs from Thursday the 29th of October to that Sunday, the 1st of November. We’ll be giving away a free ticket or two, so make sure you email us to get in the ticket freebie mix. Email tickets@yuppiechef.com with your name, number and email address.
We’ve been meaning to tell the world about this knife sharpener for an age but life being what it is, today is this blog posts’ fateful day. Below you will see Exhibit A: The truly brilliant Scanpan 3 Stage Knife Sharpener.
Much scouring of the world of kitchen tools has eventually led us to this sharpener – and what a find it is. Not only does it do a great job on your professional knives but it is perfect for that black-handled, often-used, incredibly-blunt knife every body owns (currently sitting either in the top drawer or among the recently washed up items in your kitchen). The real beauty of this 3 stage knife sharpener is just that: three wonderful, glorious, essential and nation-changing stages.
If your knife is so blunt it makes a barn door seem like a razor – this is the tool you need. Not only will it bring back that knife from the grave but it will (with the help of stages 2 and 3) give it an edge – and a good as new one too! But wait there’s more… ok, that was actually mostly it, except of course that it has a trusty handle, which ensures that both the knife and the sharpener won’t slip out of your grasp as you hastily bring your knives back to their former glory.
Take a look below and give your eyes a treat: A magnificent specimen and prime candidate for ‘product of the month’ – Wow!
So it has been some time coming but we’ve beefed up our offering of top quality books for the Yuppiechef that needs some inspiration, direction or just plain instruction! See the new Cook books here.
We now offer over 80 of the most sought after titles you could wish for in the world, with just over 50 of the top authors contributing. We should be adding more books on a monthly basis but just so you know we’re constantly on the look out for the latest and the greatest! If you have any suggestions as to other books we should put on the site let us know by emailing us at contact [at] yuppiechef.co.za – we’ll be glad to help.
We’re coming out of hiding again in two weeks for the eagerly anticipated Decorex Jo’burg, from 6th-10th August at Gallagher Estate. If you’re in Jozi for this long weekend in August make it your ambition to come and visit us in the flesh – and to see some other great exhibitors too!
Open 10:00 to 18:00 daily
Admission > R60
Children under 12 > R5 See PDF Map
Fancy winning 2 x free tickets to the show? Then send us an email with a photo of your favourite kitchen tool (bonus points if it was purchased from us) and you could be one of the lucky ones to receive a much-coveted, Yuppiechef-handled ticket. Email decorex@yuppiechef.co.za
We’re happy to announce that another 17 new products have been added to the Wusthof Classic range! It has been some time in coming but finally they are here. Items to look out for are the 5 different knife sets, the sharpener, the whetstone and the cleaver.
Check out the Wusthof range to see the new arrivals.
re for this years Good Food & Wine Show JHB with it being the last show of the year. Shows are 
We’re coming out of hiding again in two weeks for the eagerly anticipated Decorex Jo’burg, from 6th-10th August at Gallagher Estate. If you’re in Jozi for this long weekend in August make it your ambition to come and visit us in the flesh – and to see some other great exhibitors too!
