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About

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My Story, Values, Mission and Vision

Throwback to 2005, my husband Eng and I, newly married, relocated from Malaysia to the UK, a typical move for work purposes. We were elated with the opportunity but it became overwhelming juggling a young family and a full time job in London in addition to adapting to a new environment. Fortunately, I managed to secure various types of working arrangements for many years which included part-time, full time flexible working and working from home. I am very grateful to have had that flexibility but despite that, work life was still stressful due to demands and expectations of work deliverables. Daily meals were simple and quick and not something that I looked forward to due to the busyness of my corporate life and other responsibilities at home. I am sure many of you can relate to that!

Life here is a world apart from where I grew up. I hardly set foot in the kitchen when I was in Malaysia as food were so readily available 24 hours 7 days a week. I don't get that privilege living abroad, but we have decided to settle here and something had to be done to that frantic lifestyle I was leading. Although I had a grand plan initially to retire in the corporate world, to work to achieve everything I wanted in order to arrive at “the” destination, the materialistic dream but God had a different plan. 10 years later, I thought to myself there must be more to life than this and I started to question God about my purpose. There must be more than just being on the rat race and travelling around the world in business and first class for work. I began to face many challenges at work but I held on to this verse 2 Corinthians 12:9 My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weaknesses.

Hence, due to some unavoidable circumstances combined with the lingering thought about running a food business for years, there will never be a perfect time until I intentionally put my desire into action and that was how I decided to step out of my comfort zone of 18 years in the IT industry to setup this business in Woking. I have always been intrigued and inspired by my late grandma’s scrumptious Malaysian Chinese cooking ever since I was a little girl. I love my Malaysian food - I crave, I learn, I cook, I mess up, I try again, I am not perfect but still I felt a strong calling to provide this service to the local community which lead to the launch of my business in January 2017 - GoRendang, a meal solution provider "in business to serve homes & community by satisfying tummies, hearts & minds through good F.O.O.D". That's the mission. This is how I felt God answered my prayer by removing the stronghold, career and financial securityin my life so that I can leap into His mission.

That 18 years of my career in IT where I had the opportunity to acquire multiple roles and diverse skill sets were a good phase to equip me for entrepeneurship. Nearly 2 decades sounds like a long time but I have no regrets and wouldn't change it any other way because as a Christian believer, I have faith that every individual's personal journey, no matter how difficult, has been beautifully orchestrated for good reasons.

Business Values that overarch all business conducts.

  • Integrity in our trading.

  • People relationship – Building relationship, understanding and listening to customers are key. After all, we exist to serve our customers and hence we focus on serving people before profit.

  • Passion and purposeful in what we do with a corporate social responsibility to ease people’s lives and impact society in a positive way.

  • Embrace diversity – Services are aimed at customers from any background and culture. We do not tolerate discrimination.

My vision for the business are aligned with the abovementioned values and supports the mission of GoRendang CIC.

  • From satisfying tummies to warming hearts to easing busy lives and supporting struggling families with nourishing and affordable meals (people centric/zerohunger).

  • Opportunities to collaborate with other organizations with a common social mission and support local businesses by buying as much of our supplies locally, benefiting customers and the economy (business support/support local).

  • Opportunities to promote sustainable food resources and zero waste by cooking the right amount, partnering with local food producers to reduce food surpluses, and supporting the community to end hunger (community impact/zerowaste/zerohunger/sustainability).

  • We value diversity in people and ideas and empower the marginalized to achieve independence and change/transformation (community impact/homelessness).

I hope you find this information useful and clearly illustrates why GoRendang exists, a business which I have put all my heart into in order to be able to support and bless others in times of their basic daily needs. We hope we will have the opportunity to serve you too.

God bless,

Mel

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