He Pitched KSI's Food Brand in a Shoebox, with Dec Penfold

This week on the Ways to Wealth Podcast, Charlie speaks to Dec Penfold, a chef and food consultant who has built restaurant brands everywhere from Dubai to Melbourne, and who once pitched a now-thriving chicken brand to a room full of famous YouTubers using nothing but a shoebox with stickers on it.Dec has been in kitchens since he was 14, washing pots in a Thai restaurant in North Wales. At 22 he turned up to a French ski resort expecting to snowboard between shifts, only for the head chef to never arrive, leaving him to run the entire hotel kitchen for a season without speaking a word of French. From there he ran a two-storey kitchen at the O2 feeding thousands a day, opened a string of restaurants before he was 27, burned out, and was eventually headhunted by Deliveroo to build something most diners have no idea exists.He explains the strange world of virtual brands, the fake-looking restaurants quietly operating inside real kitchens to squeeze extra revenue out of empty hours, why he brought Mr Beast Burger to New Zealand, and how a business with almost no bricks and mortar actually works. There's also the honest story of swapping a decade in a one-bed London flat for a house by the beach, and what it really takes to run UK clients from the other side of the world at one in the morning.This is a conversation about reinvention, spotting opportunity where others see none, and building a career that travels with you.Watch every episode of the Ways to Wealth Podcast here: www.eccuity.com/podcastsLearn more about Dec here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dec-penfold-7ba566b9/Learn more about Dec's company here: https://www.decskitchen.com/Timestamps:00:00 Intro00:59 Who is Dec?01:34 A life in kitchens03:08 Thrown in at the deep end in France04:42 London, the O2 and burnout06:17 Sales and the Michelin back door07:09 Deliveroo and virtual brands11:05 Going solo as a consultant14:52 KSI, the Sidemen and the shoebox17:50 Equity vs getting paid19:08 Mr Beast Burger: a passion project20:13 Your salary as an asset20:55 Can you clone yourself?23:48 Will AI replace him?26:46 Your household as a business28:13 New Zealand as a hedge30:02 Life in NZ vs London33:11 The NZ market vs the UK35:19 Growing Mr Beast Burger38:47 Taking it on the road#waystowealth #food #hospitality #restaurants #ghostkitchens #virtualbrands #mrbeastburger #entrepreneurship #nzbusiness #chef #foodtech #delivery #sidemen #wealthbuilding