My name is Michelle and this is my story which goes hand in hand with Kintry’s story. I used to work in marketing, photography and event management and later became a stay at home mom.

Throughout my journey I have come to realise that there’s a certain stigma to being a single parent. Attending various talks have made me realise that it doesn’t matter what other people think, what matters is what we think and what we can do to help others.

Going through the grief of losing my mum and difficulties in my divorce case, I started noticing how women feel so much guilt. As a mum, I would hear people say if mums work, they don’t spend enough time with the children, if they stay at home, they don’t have a career or something for themselves. It’s really unnecessary for women to feel guilt over these kind of things, there really isn’t a rule book on the choices we make and if we as women feel good about the way we want to raise our family or build our career then it’s great.

During this period I was doing deep soul-searching and I wanted to be a role model and make my daughter proud. I wanted her to grow up strong and gracious and to realize she could do anything she wanted and she could do it with the strength inside her. This is why the brand and processes revolved around her.

My mother loved to cook, she had those old diaries and she used to cut up newspaper recipes from The Star or she would write them into the pages and it would just stacks of books filled with recipes. So with that I took her journals and started to experiment on my own. Due to Amelie having severe allergies to eggs and nuts when she was younger I had to cook and bake at home most of the time so these journals came in handy.

My daughter is my biggest inspiration to building Kintry and becoming a mother made me want to be a better role model for my daughter. She inspired me to be more creative with my work. It was important for me to show her how to love what you do and be happy doing it. I wanted to show her that we can do anything we wanted, that we can have the strength of being an independent women and the grace of being a mother.

Many factors played a role in the growth and the most important ones are in my support system, my late father, who gave me unconditional love, my friends for being the ultimate cheerleaders and my partner Andy who gave me the confidence to keep going out there and to push myself and the company further.

I really believe it’s important for everyone to have a good support system and if they feel they don’t, just reach out, you never know who’s out there just waiting for you to help you.