Workers prepare hot meals at the HalalMeals kitchen facility in Scarborough, Ont.Photos by Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
When Mohammad Sheikh describes going out to eat at a restaurant, he makes one thing certain. “I will call ahead and ask, are you serving halal?” he said.
Halal means “permissible” in Arabic, and for Muslim diners who eat halal, food must be sourced according to certain practices, such as how an animal is slaughtered and that the food contains no alcohol.
So, when Mohammad and his sister Ajmina Sheikh started a prepared-meal delivery company in Scarborough, they made sure all their practices were halal to feed Muslim customers. And they put it all in the name: HalalMeals.
HalalMeals co-founders Mohammad Sheikh and sister Ajmina Sheikh pictured inside their company's kitchen facility in Scarborough, Ont.
Now, in addition to the food-safety inspectors who visit such businesses, HalalMeals also gets unannounced monthly visits from an examiner with the Halal Monitoring Authority, who combs through their storeroom and kitchen to make sure all their ingredients are certified.
Mohammad said such measures are necessary for customers such as him. “In the halal market, trust is the biggest thing,” he said.
It appears to be paying off. HalalMeals says it has doubled its customers every year since it was founded six years ago and it has served a total of more than 500,000 meals. At a time when major prepared-meal and meal-kit companies are reporting drops in customer demand, HalalMeals is growing by carving out a niche in the industry and aiming to feed the underserved market of Muslim Canadians.
The siblings say the business got its start when Ajmina began to cook meals for her son’s teacher, who was going through a challenging time with her health and needed support. “That inspired me to start cooking meals for people who are in need,” Ajmina said.
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Mohammad was then working in information technology for the Ontario public service. By day he was a senior adviser at the Treasury Board. By night he, his sister and other family members would cook and package meals for customers at a restaurant owned by a family member during its off hours.
After Ontario’s government changed parties in the 2018 election, public servants were offered voluntary severance packages. Mohammad took one, with the idea that it would give him 12 months of runway to try to grow HalalMeals into a serious business. “I just didn’t want to have that regret of what HalalMeals could be, if I hadn’t worked on it full time,” he said.
They bought a production facility in mid-March 2020. With lockdowns just beginning, it was a challenging time to set up, staff and stock the business, Mohammad said – but it also meant they were well positioned for a spike in demand from families unable to eat at restaurants.
HalalMeals saw steady growth over the next three years and now has a staff of 35, which includes the cooks and packagers in the back of the facility, and a front office that includes a nutritionist and a marketing manager.
A cook at HalalMeals stirs a sauce at the company's kitchen facility.
Each week, the company takes online orders from customers until midnight on Monday. The rotating menu features a variety of cuisine from across the globe, from chicken biryani (made from her grandmother’s recipe, Ajmina says) to a chicken chipotle burger. Over the week, the team cooks fully prepared meals and vacuum-seals them, then delivers them to customers in reusable insulated bags that weekend.
About 90 per cent of HalalMeals’ customers are in the Greater Toronto Area, with most of the rest in Ottawa. Mohammad said the company is focused for now on Ontario, which includes about half of Canada’s 1.8 million Muslims, but they would eventually like to expand into other markets, including the United States.
“It’s a chronically underserved market,” he said. “We’re still years behind what a mature market of this size should have.”
Vince Sgabellone, a food service industry analyst at market-research firm Circana, said there has been a general drop in consumer demand for meal delivery. Circana’s data showed demand for meal kits (which, unlike HalalMeals, do not come pre-made) dropped 10 per cent last year.
But, he said, a bright spot was global cuisine, with that segment of restaurants growing 8 per cent in the past year. “It is one of the fastest-growing areas of the market,” he said.
Workers assemble sandwiches.
A worker packages prepared hot meals.
Firaaz Azeez, executive director of Humaniti, a Toronto-based not-for-profit relief organization, said HalalMeals fills a much-needed gap in the community. Humaniti orders from the company when helping to feed people at shelters or in other need of emergency food supplies.
“When we look at our inventory of suppliers, finding good quality with the kind of flexibility with diversity of menus – there aren’t too many choices,” he said.
Mohammad said he learned an important lesson from his time in information technology: “If you’re able to solve someone else’s pain point, you have a business.”
Many of HalalMeals’ customers are drawn to the service because they are going through major life changes, such as having a baby or dealing with a death in the family. So, Mohammad said: “We’re really helping them solve that problem of, what’s for dinner.”
Chris Hannay