PieceMeal Food Provisions

PieceMeal provides simple and beautifully designed local food options in an easy-to-assemble meal kit that benefits supplier, community, and organization alike within Nova Scotia, Canada. The meal kit, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) combo creates a simple solution healthy, local, eating at a lower cost. PieceMeal believes that "We all deserve Farm Fresh” and helps their customers save time and money to access nutrient dense, fresh produce and offers recipes, spices and sauces to create meals from seasonally available food.

Since launching in February 2021, PieceMeal has impacted the Halifax and Annapolis Valley communities in the following ways:

• Provided 3 meals per week in the form of a meal kit to 15-36 customers each month at a lower cost than Nationally recognized meal kits.
• Offered a cost-sharing model where customers have opted in to a low cost option to help them afford the product, or a higher cost option to help others afford meal kits.
• Put over $15,000 back into  the local economy by sourcing produce for the meal kits from small mainly spray free farms located in the Annapolis Valley.
• Given away over 50 free boxes of food to individuals and families experiencing food insecurity.
• Packaged spices and sauces in returnable jars keeping hundreds of plastic packages out of landfills.

Eating locally-grown and nutrient dense food is tough for many Nova Scotians. Affordability, capacity, recipe know-how and sourcing ingredients all pose problems when it comes to eating a mainly local diet. PieceMeal offers 3 meals per week that include produce, spices, sauces and recipes and a jar return program so customers can feel good about their meal kit.  Customers pick up guiltless groceries every week, knowing their produce has been sourced within a 100-150km radius.

About the Market: The first year sees a growth from 30 subscriptions to 80 subscriptions, then 100 subscriptions by year 2. This represents below 1% of the Halifax meal kit market share.

According to Census reports surveying the Halifax population, 26.9% of the 412,674 residents are couples without children, and 29.5% of them are single-dwelling households.  (See Appendix C for in-depth population charts)

That represents 111,009 people in childless couples and 121,738 people living solo totaling 232,747. This is the main population PieceMeal services.

An article published by The Chronicle Herald in February 2020 outlines the popularity of meal kits (Miss Fresh, Good Food, etc.) in Atlantic Canada.

According to an Angus Reid and Dalhousie University poll, 28% of Atlantic Canadians have tried meal kits with 7% ordering them regularly. (Bundale, 2020)

Focussing on 232,747, of the selected demographics, 7% subscriber rate would represent 16,292 people and so if PieceMeal were to capture 0.5% of that market share by Year 2, the company could supply 100 people weekly with fresh, in-season meal kits.

About the Product: 3 meals per week packed in compostable containers, reusable jars, or provided as whole produce, contribute to the greater good with a cost-sharing model. Each box is identical but is priced according to the customers’ value focus. The $30 box/week called “Easy on the pocketbook” allows for those whom are on the verge of food insecurity to access affordable meals, the $40 box/week called “Good Value” is the average price-range and the $50/week box called “Close the Gap” allows for some to give a little more in order to help sustain the $30 subscription.

PieceMeal Operations: The product is created in 2 separate locations. The first location is where sauces and spices are packed in a commercial kitchen called the Station Hub, a local initiative to help businesses like ours operate within a provincially inspected facility. The second location is a farm in Kingsport Nova Scotia where produce is kept in cold storage and meal kits are packed with produce along folding tables.

PieceMeal is ready to grow! We’ve been in operation for 6 months with fabulous feedback. We know our customers love us for our freshness, service, and because we are helping them feed themselves local food on a budget. We're ready to reach more people by establishing a secure facility with cold storage, a commercial kitchen, and office space all in one spot! Your contribution will help buy commercial equipment for the facility so we can double capacity by November and continue to scale up to feed more Nova Scotians.

About the Team: Kara Friesen is sole proprietor of the business. A recent graduate from the NSCC Business Administration program, with a focus on management, she has shown a commitment to contributing to the community. A Halls Harbor beach clean-up in February/March 2020, raised over $1,000 for a trip to Peru to work with other local entrepreneurs creating start-ups. When the trip was cancelled due to Covid-19, she used the funds to do a soft-launch of PieceMeal and provide meals to people during the height of isolation in April/May 2020. She worked for four weeks to make 8-12 boxes per week to community members. With the cost-sharing model, she was able to provide free boxes to local members whom had lost their jobs or were having trouble making ends meet.

In April she won the “Entrepreneur in the Making” and “Shift” awards. The “Entrepreneur in the Making” award recognized her ability to move a concept forward to an operational business, and awarded her $3,000 for seed money. The “Shift” award recognized her entrepreneurial, innovative, and positive contributions to the classroom during her 2 years at NSCC.

In the summer of 2020 Kara moved to Red Clay farm in Upper Economy, Nova Scotia. She apprenticed with Thomas Young, an experienced farmer running a spray-free Community Supported Agriculture program. She aided in caring for the gardens from planting to harvest time, general maintenance of the grounds, and coordinating and delivering CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes. The experience fostered an understanding of the food system from seedling to consumer, an appreciation for the hard work of growing food, and an understanding of the Nova Scotian growing seasons.

Building a business draws on her capacity for multi-tasking, networking, managing others, and driving a goal forward. The business will be a vehicle for change that offers purpose to her life, reflecting her passion for investing in a healthier, happier community with food sovereignty.

Fiona Lewis is a trained chef from Lasalle College, Montreal Canada working for PieceMeal on a part-time basis to develop recipes and help with preparation of boxes. This includes recipe creation/sourcing and entering them into a database, preparing sauces, measuring and packing spices and packing orders.  Fiona's flare for explosive taste has brought PieceMeal customers coming back for more month after month as she brings them on a culinary journey through the seasons with her fresh and innovative recipes.

PieceMeal is so excited to move toward its goal of gaining 80 subscribers by November 2021. Your contribution means the team can inch closer and closer to this goal and continue to bridge the gap between local producers, local eaters, and work little by little to chip away at food insecurity in Nova Scotia. Thank you for helping us reinforce the belief that "We all deserve Farm Fresh!"

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