Mama Yu: the UK-based chilli oil empire Xiengni Zhou and her mum built from scratch

Despite being raised by parents in the restaurant industry, Xiengni Zhou never imagined she’d one day pursue a career in food. “When I was born, the first building I saw after the hospital was probably the restaurant,” she jokes. The UK-based content creator and co-founder of the Malaysian Chinese chilli oil company Mama Yu took quite a roundabout journey to get to where she is. “I always thought I’d be an investment banking queen,” she says frankly. “I read maths and economics [at Newcastle University], then when I graduated I really struggled to find a corporate job in banking, tech or literally anything.”

Zhou ended up finding a job at Mob, a meal planning, recipe and grocery shopping app. At the same time, her mother Jolene was beginning to experiment with running a food business of her own. “We did our first drop just for fun,” Zhou says of Mama Yu’s beginnings in 2022. “Mum’s always wanted to sell food, not in the form of a takeaway setting. She’s very good with anything when it comes to food. She could make [food] with her eyes closed – she knows it by feeling and touching and smelling … but I never [thought] Mama Yu was going to be my business. It was just a way for me and Mum to spend more time together.”