FRESH FACE

Judy Hume overcomes the cost of planning and delivering hundreds of meal kits to time-strapped customers across the Toronto area

If you think keeping your grocery bills down is hard, imagine making meal plans and shopping for groceries for hundreds of customers. That’s what Judy Hume does as the owner of Fresh Canteen, a service that delivers recipes for quick, interesting weeknight dinners and the ingredients to make them to time-strapped Torontonians.

Since Fresh Canteen’s launch in the summer of 2013, several competitors offering their own meal-kit delivery services have also entered the market, increasing the pressure to keep prices down. To differentiate herself, Hume tries to offer the most diverse and interesting recipes at $12.50 a serving, while also coming up with some creative cost-cutting solutions. “You can bring, perhaps, at times, a cheaper product to the customer, but it’s not as interesting and it’s not as good,” she says. “The food cost has been a major issue. It’s been a learning curve for us.”

Hume began her career as a nurse before entering the food business. She says she was inspired by similar meal-kit services in Europe that help address some of the challenges of home cooking, most notably the time involved. But a less obvious issue is being able to buy ingredients in reasonable quantities that will stay fresh. For example, finding the handful of curry leaves that a particular recipe calls for can involve running all over town, only to find a store that just sells them in huge bunches that end up getting mostly thrown away.

Finding good quality ingredients at reasonable prices has involved a lot of research and relationship building with suppliers, especially since Hume buys local and seasonal ingredients whenever possible. When she finds a good source for a tough-to-find ingredient, she does what the home cook can’t do: Buy in bulk. “We had to go out and sort of shop ourselves to make sure we could secure a good product that’s fresh at a good price,” she says. “It’s easy to find cheap food, but some of it’s distressed.”

Packaging the ingredients for customers has been another challenge. Fresh Canteen often has to package small amounts of foods that are tricky to transport. “Whenwe send a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, we can’t send packaging that’s cheap and will leak,” Hume says. “There’s been sort of a trial-and-error period in terms of dealing with various packaging people, trying various packages.”

Fresh Canteen employs a kitchen team of five, plus a dietician and a photographer. Hume says she’s been able to save on labour costs by taking a chance on people fresh out of school. Hume says she was also surprised by how much food gets wasted during promotional photo shoots. By making a conscious effort, the company has managed to cut the food waste in half, reducing the cost of buying by extension.

Fresh Canteen is currently preparing hundreds of meals each week, adding six to 10 new clients weekly. Hume would like to expand the boundaries of where she offers the service, but that comes with its own cost challenges. For deliveries in downtown Toronto, Hume uses a bike courier company. But the farther Fresh Canteen expands its delivery boundaries, the more delivery costs will rise.

Because she isn’t trying to be the cheapest service in town, however, she has more flexibility to focus on what she thinks the company’s strengths are. “What we bring are interesting ingredients and we bring more versatility, we bring more flavor,” she says. “And, I think, an adventurous side.”