Tastemakers: He started a meal-prep business with dad to break out of poverty

SINGAPORE – Mr Nabill Shukry Johary has been making do with less than five hours of sleep every night since he started meal-prep delivery service Cheekies in July 2021.

The 27-year-old used to juggle a full-time job and part-time studies as well, often spending three hours after work on the home-based business.

His father Johary Ibrahim, 56, who was roped into the business, initially worked up to 14 hours daily marinating chicken in the tiny kitchen of their one-room rental flat.

Their hard work paid off and the pandemic side hustle eventually became successful enough for them to move into a commercial kitchen and employ three part-timers.

Cheekies – a fun word play on their main product of frozen marinated chicken breasts – stemmed from Mr Nabill’s fitness journey. He wanted to eat chicken breasts to bulk up, but found them unappetising and dry.

His father, an avid home cook, was able to whip up palatable chicken breasts by tenderising them and marinating them with black pepper and garlic powder before air-frying them.

Mr Nabill, who found them delicious, hit upon the idea to start a home-based business to sell his father’s marinated chicken during the pandemic, when he noticed many home-based businesses sprouting up.

He says: “I realised there were not many choices for healthy meal prep in the Muslim market, and I felt it was a gap we could fill.”

It was a promising solution, given that Mr Johary, a private-hire car driver, was not earning enough to cover his wife’s medical bills – the 60-year-old has psoriatic arthritis which affects her ability to work – and their family’s expenses. He has another son, 22, who is studying computer science at SUTD.

Mr Nabill used about $1,000 of his savings to start their meal-prep business, including purchasing a freezer, ingredients and packaging materials. He plans to apply for halal certification in 2025.

They launched the business online in July 2021, selling marinated chicken breasts for $18 a kg. Each 1kg pack contained 10 to 12 chicken breasts, with a choice of three flavours – black pepper, curry and bumbu, which is a mix of spices such as ginger, coriander seed and cumin.

Their first customers were relatives and friends, who bought up to 40kg a week.

Within five months, business had picked up and they were churning out 80kg of marinated chicken breasts a week.

Father and son decided to do their side hustle full time. While Mr Nabill kept his full-time job as a marketing executive at an IT company, Mr Johary quit being a private-hire car driver to focus on Cheekies.

Mr Johary mainly marinated the chicken breasts, while Mr Nabill managed their social media marketing, sorted orders, planned deliveries and spent three hours nightly packing the chicken breasts after returning home from work.

Mr Nabill recalls: “My main motivation is the promise I made to my parents to get our family out of the rental flat. Generating our own income can help us achieve that goal.”

His family now lives in a one-room rental flat in Tampines, which they moved into in 2016.

Mr Nabill recalls that his parents were middle-income earners for the first seven years of his life. The family used to live in a four-room flat in Simei, which his parents bought in 2000. 

His parents, who ran an interior design company from 2000 to 2004, faced financial difficulties after their business partner ran off with company funds. In 2003, his mother stopped working due to psoriatic arthritis, which led to mounting medical bills.

As the sole breadwinner, Mr Nabill’s father worked various jobs, from car to furniture store salesman, before attempting to start a homeopathy clinic and also an events firm. But they ended in failure and he struggled to get back on his feet financially. He eventually turned to driving a private-hire car.

By 2006, money had run out for the family and his parents sold their flat.

Mr Nabill recalls that life after that was a series of moves, briefly bunking down with relatives, going from one rented room to another, before getting their current rental flat.

His parents occupy the only bedroom, while he and his younger brother share a bunk bed in the living room.

Mr Nabill, who graduated from Republic Polytechnic in 2018 with a diploma in social enterprise management, recalls turning down outings with friends because he could not afford the luxury of dining out. 

“There were times when my family couldn’t afford to pay our utility bills, and days when we did not have enough money for food on the table,” he says.

Based on his own experience of being from a low-income family, Mr Nabill keeps prices of Cheekies’ meal-prep products affordable. 

While they started the business targeting customers of his age group who are fitness-conscious, he came to realise their products are also popular with working adults keen on healthier meals and Malay housewives.

Mr Nabill says social media helped boost their business, which has seen its share of highs and lows. 

Their @cheekies_sg account on Instagram has over 9,000 followers, while their TikTok account @cheekies_singapore has 13,700 followers.

To promote their products, he reached out to influencers to give them products in return for reviews. 

He also began documenting their journey of running a business on TikTok, sharing their experiences to inspire and help those interested in running their own home-based business.

Just as Cheekies was on a roll, a curveball came in the form of Malaysia’s ban on chicken exports, announced in May 2022.

The price of chicken breasts from his suppliers shot up from $3 to $13 a kg, until the ban was lifted in October 2022.

Cheekies had to increase its prices to $24 a kg for its marinated chicken breasts.

Mr Nabill wanted to throw in the towel after receiving numerous complaints about the price increase. They lost half their customers.

But his father refused to give up. Instead, the duo expanded their product range to include chicken thigh meat, which costs them $8 a kg, and lamb, which is more expensive at $15 a kg, but is popular with their Malay customers. 

A turning point for their business was a TikTok video in which Mr Nabill revealed to followers that they are living in a rental flat and spoke about their neighbours who are working hard for their families. 

He was moved to make the video after seeing a neighbour rummaging through garbage to find things to sell. In the video, he urged viewers to have empathy for those in difficult circumstances, instead of saying things such as “if you are not trying to improve your life, you are lazy”.

The video, posted on Dec 30, 2022, garnered 95,900 views and won him a host of new supporters and followers.

He says: “Some customers told me they bought our products to support me, but they found they liked our products so much, they ended up being our regulars.”

After that video, their products, available for order on a weekly basis on the Cheekies website, regularly sold out within minutes.

He was motivated to create more content, including recipes using their products, such as macaroni goreng with black pepper chicken breasts, and black pepper chicken chop burger.

But even as demand for their products soared – Cheekies had a waitlist of more than 200 customers – they were unable to produce more due to their home-based set-up. 

His TikTok videos attracted several interested parties, who offered to invest $40,000 to $100,000 in the business, but they were turned down as they wanted a large chunk of control over Cheekies.

In April 2023, Mr Nabill and his father registered Cheekies as a private limited company. Two months later, they ended their home-based operations and poured $20,000 of their earnings into renting a 200 sq ft space at Centropod@Changi, which serves as their office and kitchen.

With the help of three part-timers, they are able to produce up to 500kg of their products a week, but customers still need to wait up to 12 days to receive the marinated meats, which are prepared to order.

They have introduced new flavours, such as Tandoori Chicken Breasts ($24.99 for 1kg) and Tom Yum Chicken Breasts ($24.99 for 1kg).

In September, Mr Nabill took the plunge and quit his full-time job as a marketing executive at a solar film company to focus on Cheekies.

He is studying part-time for a marketing degree at SUSS and will graduate in 2025.

He plans to expand Cheekies and industrialise its production process at a manufacturing facility in 2025. In the long run, he aims to sell their products at food retail stores and supermarkets here and in Indonesia.

While his family still lives in the rental flat, Mr Nabill says running Cheekies has improved their financial situation. His mother can now afford to see a private specialist for treatment and he can fund his studies. And his family can occasionally treat themselves to a meal at Swensen’s, instead of their usual simple, home-cooked fare. 

He hopes to achieve his goal of buying an HDB flat for the family in the next two years.

He is also setting aside money for his parents’ medical bills, as his mother also has stage 4 chronic kidney disease and his father has thyroid disease. 

Mr Nabill says: “I do not need to live luxuriously, but I want to give my family stability and use my business to help others who are on their own journeys to better their lives, be it getting healthier or starting their own business.”