Fresh Prep is a Vancouver-based meal kit delivery service. They offer convenient and sustainable solutions to your everyday food challenges, making cooking and cleaning easy with pre-cut and pre-portioned ingredients. You’ll find many locally grown ingredients, meals developed with seasonal ingredients in mind, and items from beloved local businesses from across BC in their Add-Ons Menu. Your meal kits create less waste – they are delivered in reusable, insulated and sanitized cooler bags. They deliver to more than 20 cities in BC, and you’ll get shorter delivery times than other meal kit services because Fresh Prep is based right here.

Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?

Answer: It’s a big part of our business to focus on local ingredients and products. We’re based here, and we love working with local suppliers and partners. We want our customers to be able to purchase a meal kit that supports local as one of their values, so we’re a partner on that. Our local purchasing policy ensures that we partner with local suppliers, growers and artisan producers that share our values of quality, freshness, and sustainability. Fully 75% of our ingredients are locally grown, or are products sourced from local B.C. businesses! When ingredients aren’t grown locally or aren’t of the freshest or best quality for our customers, we work with local suppliers who help us get those ingredients for our meal kits, while still employing members of our community and contributing to the local economy.

We love our local suppliers. We work with Seasons Bakery, a family-owned Vancouver-based business with wonderfully hand-crafted pastries that are made with love, care, and quality ingredients. One of our long-time suppliers is Bosa Foods, a purveyor in high-quality Italian goods, a family-owned business in Vancouver community for over 60 years. From pastas, to beans, vegan cheese and more, bringing a taste of Italy to your home. We also buy baked goods from Portofino Bakery (Victoria), tofu from Sunrise-Soya Foods (Vancouver), chicken from Rossdown Farms (Abbotsford), and hummus and other dips from Tayybeh, pre-prepared sauces for our add-on menu from Jaan Foods and Kula Kitchen, and wine from Roche Wines (Penticton). There are too many to list them all here, but learn more by check out our Love Local campaign page, and video (below).

Question: What social and environmental practices are you proud of?

Answer: We are a Certified B-Corporation. It’s a sustainable business certification program that demonstrates our commitment to doing business for good; keeping us striving for better social impact, and to reduce our environmental footprint.

We’re also pretty proud to provide so many great local jobs. We currently employ over 250 people and are constantly hiring. We’ve added over 100 people to the team since this time last year (November 2019), and continue to hire for roles from recipe testers, machine operators, engineers, receiving and delivery drivers. We also have a hiring partnerships with Open Door Group, WorkSafe BC and Jobs West which work with individuals who have barriers to employment to set them up for success in the workplace.

We regularly donate to many important causes and charities. With the COVID-19 pandemic we gave nearly $10,000 back to small businesses deeply impacted by the pandemic, to sell products on our Add-Ons Menu. We also invited new vendors on board to support them during the crisis. We provided healthcare workers with $33500 in gift card subsidies. We’ve raised over $2600 to cover the registration fees for children with disabilities at Zajac Ranch summer camp. We also help fundraise for other community organizations such as Ronald McDonald House of BC’s Home for Dinner Program, support Backpack Buddies and more organizations through special fundraising initiatives throughout the year. In support of the Black Lives Matter movement, we have donated funds and matched employee donations for a total of $3000 to Black Health Alliance, Black Lives Matter Global Network, Black Lives Matter Vancouver, Black Visions Collective, Black Women Connect Vancouver, Black Women in Motion, Canadian Anti-Racism Education Society, George Floyd Memorial Foundation, Hallie Q Brown Community Center, Hogan’s Alley Society, and Loveland Therapy Fund. Each month since 2017 we’ve donated weekly inventory of fresh and non perishable food items to Kiwassa Neighborhood House, a community establishment for low-income families in East Vancouver, as well as organizations such as The Door is Open, Tamura House, Quest Food Exchange and the Greater Vancouver Food Bank for an average of 1000 kilograms of food donated each week.

We are a signatory on the UN Global Compact. We are committed to reducing the impact of our operations. Through Fresh Prep’s recycling program, we diverted over 100,000 kg of single-use plastic from landfills in 2019 and in 2021 plans to release its zero waste kit to curb the use of single-use plastics. Additionally, Fresh Prep only uses Ocean Wise recommended seafood, which helps ensure the health of oceans for generations to come. And of course all of the local purchasing we do substantially reduces the food miles of the products we buy.