Jason Azzopardi Is Helping More Families Rediscover Home Cooking

How the Starting Up, Starting Out™ programme helped the founder of Cooking with robandjas turn practical recipe content into a clearer mission, a growing audience and a stronger connection with families.

For Jason Azzopardi, cooking at home is about much more than preparing a meal.

It is an opportunity for families to spend time together, understand what they are eating and help children develop a healthier relationship with food. Through Cooking with robandjas, Jason creates accessible, step-by-step recipe content designed to help individuals and families feel more confident in the kitchen.

The idea was already working. Jason had recipes to share, a growing online platform and a clear belief in the value of home cooking.

His challenge was reaching the people who would benefit most.

“I had great step-by-step cooking content for individuals and families, but I struggled to target the right audience.”

Making cooking feel achievable

Cooking can sometimes feel more complicated than it needs to be.

For people balancing work, childcare and other responsibilities, preparing food at home may seem time-consuming or difficult. Some may lack confidence in the kitchen, while others simply need recipes explained in a way that is clear, practical and easy to follow.

Cooking with robandjas was created to make the process more approachable.

Through recipe videos and instructional content, Jason breaks cooking down into manageable stages. His goal is not only to show audiences what to make, but to help them understand how to make it for themselves.

At the heart of the project is a straightforward mission:

“Help families cook more at home.”

Jason believes that helping children understand food and become familiar with home cooking can have a lasting effect. It can support healthier choices, strengthen family relationships and give people practical skills they can continue using throughout their lives.

“We have to raise better kids with a better understanding of food,” he explains. “To cook and eat at home is very healthy.”

The challenge of finding the right audience

Before joining Starting Up, Starting Out™ with Southwark LAP, Jason knew that his content could help people.

What he had not yet developed was a clear strategy for finding and communicating with those people.

Creating useful content is only one part of building an online platform. Founders must also understand who they are trying to reach, what matters to that audience and how to present their work in a way that encourages people to stop, watch and engage.

Jason joined the programme hoping to develop his communication skills, share his ideas more effectively and reach more families through stronger promotion.

His 12-month ambition was simple but significant: use advertising and improved communication to expand the audience for Cooking with robandjas.

Learning to tell the story behind the recipes

A turning point came when participants were asked to present and market their ideas.

The exercise encouraged Jason to think beyond explaining what Cooking with robandjas does. He began considering the story behind the work: why cooking at home matters, what families might gain from it and why his content deserves their attention.

“We discussed how to tell the story of our journey and use that story to attract bigger audiences.”

Storytelling gave Jason a way to connect individual recipes to a wider purpose.

Instead of presenting each video only as a set of instructions, he could also communicate the benefits surrounding it: spending time together, developing food knowledge, building confidence and making home cooking part of everyday family life.

This shift helped him see that audiences are not only looking for information. They also want a reason to care.

Turning learning into stronger content

Jason describes the programme as eye-opening because it gave him ideas he could apply directly to his platform.

The most important was learning to use storytelling more intentionally.

“The major thing I applied was storytelling, because I can give people many reasons to understand the benefits of cooking at home.”

This strengthened the way he communicated the purpose of his recipes. Rather than assuming viewers would immediately understand the wider value of the content, Jason began making that value more visible.

The result was greater engagement.

Following the programme, he began seeing more views, more subscribers and more questions from members of his audience. Those questions were particularly meaningful because they showed that people were not simply watching passively. They were responding, seeking advice and beginning to build a relationship with the platform.

For a content-led initiative, that interaction is an important sign of growth.

Growing in confidence and direction

The programme also had a personal effect on Jason.

Before joining, he had the passion and content, but he was less certain about how to turn them into a focused growth strategy. Developing a clearer understanding of his audience gave him a stronger sense of direction.

“It gave me more self-confidence and more direction about where I am going.”

That confidence matters when building something publicly.

Creating online content requires consistency and a willingness to keep sharing even when growth is gradual. It also requires creators to listen to their audiences, test new approaches and learn from what attracts the strongest response.

Jason now has a clearer framework for doing that. He can use audience questions, viewing patterns and subscriber activity to understand what people need and shape future content accordingly.

Support that continued beyond the course

One of the most important parts of Jason’s experience was knowing that the relationship did not end when the formal sessions finished.

He valued being part of a community that remained willing to listen and offer support.

“Even after the course, I still have support. The community is always supportive and ready to listen to our needs.”

For an early-stage founder working independently, that sense of continued connection can make a major difference.

It provides somewhere to take questions, test ideas and regain momentum when the next stage feels uncertain. It also reminds founders that they do not have to solve every challenge alone.

The journey to 3,000 subscribers

Jason’s next major goal is to grow Cooking with robandjas to 3,000 subscribers, alongside increased viewing and interaction.

The number is important, but his ambition is not based on numbers alone.

Growth will help him understand more about who is watching, which recipes are connecting with families and how people are using the content. A larger and more engaged audience will also create more opportunities for Jason to share his central message: that cooking at home can be accessible, enjoyable and valuable for the whole family.

He is now using the strategies developed through Starting Up, Starting Out™ to identify the people who need his content and communicate with them more effectively.

The recipes were already there. The programme helped Jason strengthen the story around them, understand the audience for them and build the confidence to keep growing.

Asked to describe the experience in three words, he chose:

Tough. Enjoyable. Rewarding.