From TV to Hot Sauce Charlie Page Looks Ahead

Radical job switches are daunting, but they have the power to rewire entire careers and lives, according to Ed Peters in as story for the South China Morning Post. Peters interviews Ho Chi Minh-based New Zealander Charlie Page about his new, and saucy, direction.

“A radical career switch is becoming normal, especially in this changing world,” says Steve Man, a Hong Kong-based career transition expert who founded the human resources advisory firm Buddy Town.

Page tells his story of change for the better. After a long spell with terrestrial and cable TV companies – “I am partly to blame for inflicting reality TV shows of vacuous kids who can’t sing or dance on an unsuspecting population” – he decided that being part of a vast media corporation was “a gradual process of being hammered into submission that reminded me of school”.

Looking around for a niche market, he realised that the country’s traditional chilli sauce, which used to be made at home according to family recipes, had by and large been replaced with almost tasteless mass-produced gloop.

“One evening, eating some homemade Vietnamese food, I realised I could bring the traditional methods and flavours back to Vietnam,” Page says. He founded a sauce making company, Saigon Charlie’s Vietnam Smoked Chili Sauce.

Currently, Page is exporting to Switzerland and is looking to grow swiftly this year into Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Russia, as well as the United States and China.

Original article by Ed Peters, South China Morning Post, May 18, 2020.