Creating from a Place of Peace: Nina Co

As someone who’s always had passion for creating, Nina Co finds herself leading a troop of creatives - excellent home cooks. Through Quisina, not only is she able to make yummy home cooked meals accessible to everybody, she’s also able toempower Filipinos to showcase their culinary talents.

An architect by profession, Nina shares with us how her heart for creating translates to her food business and her home life. 

We love how Quisina puts the home cook front and center. Tell us more about Quisina! What inspired this idea?

As much as Quisina is a food business, I see it more as a lifestyle design project. Making something delicious in the food industry is a given. But I wanted to create something beyond just the taste. It's about how the person feels when they prepare the food.

 We wanted to make a unique yet familiar selection that you can use for any meal that is easy to prepare to suit the modern lifestyle. Mealtimes are supposed to be fun from prep, and flexible enough to fit the family's moods and whims.

What would you like for people to experience when they buy food from Quisina?

For us, each purchase is actually 2 different people we attend to. The family who will be having it for their meals, and the person who will buy and order. 

We want it to be slightly playful yet comforting homey for the family while they have it. And for the person who is buying it, we want them to feel that despite not being the one to personally prepare the meals, that they are sure that they served home-cooked quality meals to their loved ones.

How has the journey been in terms of growing Quisina, and how do you see Quisina in the next year or so?

I personally prefer offering our current customers more options than acquiring more customers and that entails coming up with new products regularly. And since I develop each recipe personally, it really takes us a while

We definitely want to add more selection! More cuisines and choices for our customers. 

What's your ultimate comfort food?

Cake. I advocate for removing the idea that there must be a birthday if there's cake. There's a happy future where we will never hear, "Cake? Sinong may birthday?"

What activities do you do when you want/need to take time off from the business?

Meditating and yoga has to be the most constant. I tend to prefer trying out new stuff rather than having a go-to hobby. Was supposed to try out bouldering (it's like wall climbing but sideways) prior to the lockdown so that's definitely up next! 

You're also an advocate of mindfulness and mental wellness. Can you tell us more about this?

Mindfulness is quite a dedication to achieve and I'm no stranger to falling out of the habit when the stressors come, but it always calls me back to bring a sliver of peace and, on great days, some clarity. It has allowed me to really know what I want in life and pour all my energy to the correct channel to achieve it. And I do wish everyone finds theirs as well. The world is quite too noisy and it takes a great deal of effort to listen to ourselves but it's really the only voice that matters.

We're slowly easing out of lockdown. Any travel plans? Where do you want to go first, and why?

(I’m) quite shortsighted and get more excited for the soonest trip I can go to.  I feel local might be the most feasible soonest, and have been wanting to go to Abra! But when international borders open up, I would love to go to the US to see family and some national parks!

Homemade. No preservatives. No MSG. Follow Quisuina PH's Facebook page.