Mama Yu: ‘We want to build an empire’

“It’s in our genes,” says Jolene Yu, the co-founder and ‘mama’ behind Mama Yu – the Malaysian Chinese chilli oil company started by Jolene and her daughter Xiengni Zhou in 2022. Seeing the success the mother-and-daughter duo has achieved in just a few short years, it’s hard to disagree with the heredity. 

Xien is a content creator, recipe developer and ex-financial modelling analyst. Jolene has been running Sheffield’s Wok Inn – a popular Chinese British takeaway where you can get picture-perfect portions of everything from salt and pepper chips to prawn foo yung – for over 30 years. Together, the pair have created a thriving business selling a range of handmade Malaysian Chinese chilli oils and sauces. To date, they’ve sold over 10,000 jars and gained almost 20,000 followers on Instagram alone.

What started as a side hustle has turned into a full-time job for both of them. Xien quit her corporate job in late 2024 to focus on growing Mama Yu, and Jolene followed suit by moving to London with her earlier this year. 

“Seeing the struggle that she went through when we were younger, in terms of running her restaurant and takeaway and managing that, while also being a fantastic mum for me and my sister, wasn’t easy,” Xien tells me. “But her hard work, resilience and determination really inspired me. It’s ingrained in me to want to do better and be better.”

Family businesses don’t get much more familial than Mama Yu. To trace the origins of the company, you’ve got to jump back another generation to the chilli farm that Xien’s grandmother, Popo Yu, grew up on. “I still use the same simple ingredients and my mum’s recipe today,” explains Jolene.

“Whenever I went back to Malaysia to see my friends, they told me how they couldn't find the old-style chilli oil anymore,” she continues. “Making that kind of chilli oil is very expensive now, so they cut down on a lot of the ingredients. But I make Mama Yu’s using the same ingredients my mum used when we were younger.”

The recipe passed down through the family contains a mixture of red chillies, vegetable oil, onion, shallots, garlic, lemongrass, lime, salt, sugar and MSG. Although the scale they’re working at in their commercial kitchen today is much larger than when they first started making chilli oil at home, Xien and Jolene are still in charge of the entire production process, from start to finish. 

The product might be rooted in tradition, but the savvy use of social media to promote the chilli oil, launched in batches that replicate the hype of a Supreme drop or Glastonbury ticket release, is a new-school marketing strategy. At time of writing, Batch #17 is for sale on Delli (an online platform from the Depop team, selling products from independent food and drink brands) and available in over 20 stockists across London and Sheffield. If your local deli stocks the stuff, you’re in luck. If not, you’re only a few screen taps away from getting a jar delivered straight to your door.

I remember trying a spoonful of Mama Yu’s work-in-progress chilli oil, which Jolene had filled an empty Nescafé jar with for everyone working at the online recipe platform Mob to try, back in 2022. It was sweet, tangy, spicy and unbelievably addictive. A couple of Jackson Pollock splatters of the stuff are capable of transforming a bowl of plain rice into a satisfying meal. And I know that from personal experience. 

“I think seeing everyone's positive reaction to that test batch solidified that we could bring the product to life and let people get a taste of what it's like to grow up in a Malaysian Chinese family kitchen,” says Xien. 

In November 2022, the first batch of 30 jars, which sold out in just 10 minutes, was slapped with a load of handwritten labels and shipped out to customers. For context of how far they’ve come since, one of the more recent drops saw Mama Yu sell a thousand jars in a day.

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The Mama Yu product line has expanded to include a black bean chilli oil, a garlic chilli oil, a crispy shallot oil, a Malaysian curry chilli oil and a sweet and spicy sambal humming with chillies, shrimp paste and a bushel of aromatics. All the products are delicious and unique in their own right, showcasing Jolene and Xien’s dialled-in understanding of flavour and the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) market. Anything that isn’t perfect often doesn’t see the light of day. Case in point: a short-lived peanut chilli oil, which was discontinued because Xien and Jolene weren’t happy with the consistency of the product. Sometimes they’ll be working in the commercial kitchen as late as 10 pm, leaving with their arms throbbing from hours of stirring. 

“If my mum could sleep at the warehouse, she would,” says Xien. “I love it, but it's a lot of work. In all honesty, given the amount we're producing, we should be outsourcing it. But it’s still just me and mum, and then we get a lovely guy to come in and help us seal the lids. It's a long process. We’ll spend a whole day washing the chillies, then roasting them, then frying them. And then we move from the chillies to the garlic, onion and lemongrass. It isn’t just throwing it all into one big pot – all the different aromatics are fried and prepared differently.”

Like the chilli oil, Mama Yu’s sambal is an old-school classic, crafted from a traditional recipe that’s becoming increasingly rare. Sambal has a fragrant and slightly funky flavour profile, making it a staple ingredient in Nonya cuisine – a unique and delicious amalgamation of Chinese, Malay and Indonesian cuisines developed by the Peranakan community who settled in and around the Malay Archipelago.

“There's no way that you can find the kind of sambal we make unless you go to an old village to visit the grandmas,” says Jolene. “That’s the only other way you will be able to taste that kind of sambal.” 

She would know. When Jolene first arrived in the UK in 1984, she did so carrying a big tub full of her mother’s sambal in her luggage. “She gave it to me and said: ‘Just in case you don't like the Western food, at least you’ll have sambal to go with your bread.’” Once it ran out, it was impossible to find anything close to a substitute. 

The Mama Yu sambal you can buy today is made from the same recipe used to fill Popo Yu’s big tub – it’s the same taste of home Jolene was looking for when she spread it onto a baguette in a hotel room in 1984. Mama Yu isn’t just a continuation of their family legacy but a way for Jolene and Xien to educate and introduce people to Malaysian Chinese cooking. 

“We’ve got grandmas from North Yorkshire, who are 70 years old, telling us they love the product,” says Xien, laughing in what I can assume is partly disbelief and partly the amusing mental image of a biddy in Harrogate spreading sambal on a shortbread biscuit.

“We want to grow big,” says Jolene. “We want to build an empire.”

“We’d love to see a future where the brand can be a household name,” agrees Xien, “but it's still very much about the story, and keeping it authentic. That’s why we're not going to change the label,” which is furnished with ‘余妈妈’ in Chinese as well as its Anglicised translation, “so it’s easier to read and so it looks just like any other product on the shelf. When people pick it up, it reminds those who have migrated here of home. That’s important. But it’s also for a new audience. I think Malaysian cuisine is becoming better known in the UK, but Malaysian Chinese cuisine – and Nonya food – is a whole different story. We're very proud to be able to share something from mum's homeland and a recipe that my grandma grew up with, but still presenting it authentically.”

Before every batch of Mama Yu drops, Popo Yu prays for success from Malaysia. And with the combined power of grandma’s prayers and the algorithm behind them, I can’t see Mama Yu’s trajectory slowing down anytime soon.