The case - A famous chef - 'It has just happened'

'I've never wanted a big company. I wanted great successes, but not many employees, high turnover or seven or eight companies, which it probably is right now. It's something that just happened. I've never worked with plans. Until a few years ago I didn't work with budgets, and the idea of having a board is only four years old. We never took bank loans. I've only done that once and it was not a success... So we started in the easiest way'. This is how Claus describes his approach to entrepreneurship. in 2010, the Meyer Group (including subsidiaries) consisted of a number of food companies that together employed more than 300 people.

Claus grew up in the Danish 'food culture' of the 1960s and 70s: a time characterised by many women leaving the kitchen in favour of paid labour. Danish households were filled to the brim with frozen vegetables, minced meat, frying margarine and other foods that made life easier and kept costs down - often at the expense of food quality and the consumer's experience. At the beginning, Claus had no special interest in food, but as a young man he found himself in the house of a famous chef in southern France. The experience founded a mission for life within him. He would transform and improve the Danish/Nordic food culture: put the experience, the soul, the quality and sincerity back into the food, but how? Claus had no plan as to how he might realise his mission.

Others might have undertaken training as a chef, but not Claus. Instead, he enrolled on a course as a student at Copenhagen Business School, and consequently Denmark's most famous chef never trained as a chef. At the business school he took a business administration degree, specialising in starting and developing businesses. Claus chose this approach because, to a great extent, he already saw entrepreneurship as a future career path: both his father and grandfather having been self-employed.

As a 20-year-old young man Claus started his first entrepreneurial project: 'take away food' from his two-room studio apartment in Copenhagen. He delivered the food on his Raleigh bicycle. Later he talked the business school's rector into letting him take over the school canteen. It was the beginning of a long entrepreneurial journey: many organisational projects have been set up in the years since (The Chocolate Company, Meyer and Tingstrom staff restaurants, corporate 'pampering' outings/team building, fruit breeding, Noma, Meyer's Deli, etc.)

The mission comes into focus

'I had the best idea of my life about four years ago: it synchronised the last 15 years of my life. I didn't want to go into the restaurant business, but I got an offer... a nice place... an old warehouse in Christianshavn. My idea was to build a Nordic gourmet restaurant'. Colleagues laughed. Nordic food is not 'fine' - not worthy of a gourmet restaurant. The restaurant would be ridiculed as the 'whale-restaurant'. Nevertheless, Class established the restaurant, Noma, with his partner Rene Redzepi, who has experience in the gourmet business. They cultivated the unique history, taste and origin of Nordic cuisine. Nobody had thought of it before. Thai, French and Indian cuisine, we all know, but what is Nordic cuisine? Neither of the two entrepreneurs had dreams of creating great economic success: it was about something bigger. As with Claus' mission in life their real success criterion was to define the Nordic kitchen and create a common mission among Nordic farmers, small and large businesses, citizens, politicians, etc. to promote Nordic food of high quality. It all led to a huge success. In 2008, Noma was awarded two Michelin stars and, as mentioned, it was named the world's best restaurant in 2010 and 2011.

A Nordic movement

The establishment of Noma was essentially a process involving a lot of different people, first and foremost partner Rene Redzepi. Claus' role was primary to support Rene based on his experience as an entrepreneur: 'I supported him and helped with finance, building the website, recruiting staff, creating the first menus, chose the graphic designer, took care of the contractual relationships with the owners of the premises, but probably most important, I brought together all of the Nordic food-intelligence... Ministers from Norway and Denmark, etc. even people from the Nordic food industry... to discuss how everyone could share our vision'. Claus simply chose to invite ministers, top officials from the Nordic food industry, journalists and famous chefs for a symposium to articulate the idea of Nordic cuisine, formulated as 10 commandments.

The manifesto would be launching a whole new movement - a movement with many different members (cooks, consumers, politicians and business people from all the Scandinavian countries). The movement came together to promote Nordic food culture based on the manifesto's words. The Nordic Ministers of Food were also part of the movement, launching a 'New Nordic Food Programme' based on the manifesto. This programme allocates funds to organisations and individual people who develop, produce or market products in accordance with the manifesto.

So, a restaurant and the concept on which it was founded has become a Nordic movement. Through the movement, Claus fulfilled his mission of creating a platform for a Danish/Nordic food culture. One that is not all about frozen vegetables, minced meats and frying margarine, but a food culture that promotes the uniqueness, he origin and quality of Nordic cuisine.

Dancing around

Reflecting on the creation of his entrepreneurial ventures, Claus relates how he cooks to how he creates organisations: 'There are many similarities. The way I love to cook is without a recipe or a definite plan. I love to go somewhere, for example Hungary, and see which vegetables are in the garden; what meat is available and what's in fridge. Then I dance a little, thinking what I can do and what I know. On the way I interact a little with the surroundings - and that's also how I do business. I listen to people; I talk to my employees. If I have a dishwasher who is good with flowers, I would be stupid if I didn't ask him to arrange the flowers. If I meet someone who wants to build a dairy and it could be a bigger and better if we did it together, then I would be attracted. So I build businesses in the same way that I cook: I dance around, see what happens and try to feel the energy'.

Similar thoughts are expressed in an interview with the CBS Observer in 2008. Claus Meyer explained: 'I've never made any plans. My plan has been to be open to the outside world, so you can't just rush pas the opportunities that present themselves. I think this has been good for my dream because I have always been open to new paths, but it has not necessarily been good for the individual companies. Growth comes from planning and financing I have not planned and I have not taken loans and this means that everything has gone very slowly. If I had done things differently, I could probably have experienced much faster growth'.

However, the larger the Meyer group became, the more Claus experienced a need to professonalise and structure its organisation. He set up a professional board, but mostly it functions as a provider of inspiration. He likes to retain control himself. 'The board supports me in having a well organised company with the right skills in the right positions relative to what we want to do. Who should be the leader? ... I do not know much about building large organisations. I didn't want to be a big organisation, but now I have one... I hope that I am a good priest and visionary person and that all employees want to follow my footsteps. But I'm not the classic leader'. The board often advises Claus to think more about making money, but he has a larger vision of his entrepreneurial activities than financial goals.

Question Marketing

Claus managed to build a strong business over the years. How would you describe and characterize his marketing approach? Has his approach changed over the time?