32 | BC B U S I N E SS NOVEM B ER/ D ECEM B ER 2025
THE KICKOFF:
In a Chinatown basement in late 2014, co-founders and
lifelong friends Dhruv Sood and Hussein Rahemtulla started
putting together meals. Having managed his family's busi-
ness while supporting his father through cancer treatment,
Rahemtulla was inspired to solve a daily pain point but also
eat healthier while saving time on cooking. Dhruv brought
financial and logistics expertise to the (kitchen) table, and
the duo was soon joined by another childhood friend, Becky
Brauer, who had a background in complex food systems.
"I was working 9-to-5 myself and I always had a really
big issue with coming home drained and then not wanting
to either spend my weekends meal prepping or my eve-
nings [figuring out] what to make for dinner," says Brauer.
"I just saw so much value in this idea that a service could
take away so much work from people's lives and just allow
them to have the fun part of cooking back."
ACTION PLAN:
In just a decade, Fresh Prep has grown from a scrappy
basement operation into a $100-million Canadian-owned
meal kit company with about 610 employees.
Since becoming a certified B Corp in 2019, the meal
kit service has doubled down on innovation with purpose.
In 2021, the team tackled one of the meal kit industry's
biggest issues—packaging waste—by introducing the Zero
Waste Kit. By swapping out disposable plastics, the pat-
ented containers have already diverted more than 68,000
kilograms of single-use plastic from landfills.
Husein Rahemtulla, Becky Brauer, Dhruv Sood
C O-FOU N D ERS, F R E S H P R E P
While beneficial, it's not entirely altruistic, says Sood.
"When we started, we never wanted to employ a lot of
single-use plastic and did everything that we could while
trying to maintain food safety and shelf life," he says. "But
it was also born out of the need to automate more to be
able to deliver compelling value to our customers, which
we feel really strongly about." And so, the team decided
to combine those two solutions into one. "By employing
the Zero Waste Kit, we can really save money," Sood adds.
It turns out Fresh Prep actually spends less to provide the
Zero Waste Kit than the version that generates more waste.
CLOSING STATEMENT:
In 2024, Fresh Prep started cooking with fire—that is, it
acquired Cook It, one of Canada's first meal kit compa-
nies. Now the brand delivers meal kits all over the country,
including B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
They've expanded nationwide, yet still manage to
keep meals affordable and food waste low—with their
lowest-priced recipes costing $11.30 per serving.
"Fresh Prep is officially national. So that's fresh,"
Rahemtulla says, unironically. "So, next for our brand is a
big push piece [around that]."–K.A.
ENTREPRENEUR
OF
THE
YEAR
PACIFIC REGIONAL WINNER
What's an odd job
you've had?
BB: I used to work at
the As Seen On TV
store when I was in high
school. It was an inter-
esting job and I learned
a lot about responsibility
and accountability.
DS: I was a grave-
yard-shift blackjack
dealer at the Grand Villa
(Casino) for a summer.
HR: In high school,
I sold newspaper
subscriptions of the
Vancouver Sun door
to door. It was a
purely commission pay
structure so at the start
I was earning less than
minimum wage!
RAPID
FIRE
