I went from cooking for mum and dad to creating a booming meal prep business

Keen sportsman Max Vernon started meal prepping to look after his own health and help take care of his close family.

Now what started as a personal passion has grown into a booming business delivering in excess of 700 meals a week across Liverpool.

And the 25-year-old has set his sights on becoming the city’s go-to for nutritional meal prep.

He launched Maxi Nourish in September last year, focusing on core principles of using only high-quality meat from trusted butchers, fresh organic veg and no seed Oils.

Max also created menus which debunk the idea that healthy food is boring, with best-selling dishes like chip shop chicken curry and rice, and sticky toffee pudding.

Although he’s never had any formal chef training or even worked in hospitality before, the former Merchant Taylor’s student says his own experience has helped him grow a successful business.

He explains:

“I’ve always been a passionate home cook, I cook for the whole family, my mum, my dad, just because I care about them, and I’m an avid sportsman so I know that eat well equals do well in sport. I’d helped my dad lose about 3-4 stone, and my mum’s had part of her thyroid taken out so I wanted to support her hormonal health too.

“When I left uni I was a typical tech sales bro, I went down to London and tried to go down that whole corporate ladder route but I was just really unhappy.

I came back and wanted to start a business, and because I was doing meal preps for my mum, my dad and a few business partners, one thing led to another. A girl who I’d helped lose a stone put it on Instagram, she told a few friends and when I started posting it just blew up from there.

“I’d had some sales experience so I was doing videos, I made the brand really personal, and I think people just bought into me and how much I cared about what I was doing.”

As demand for Maxi Nourish started to expand, Max moved the operation from the kitchen to the conservatory of his family home.

He continued:

“I’ve been really lucky because I’ve created a full commercial kitchen in the conservatory my grandad built. We managed to convert it in one weekend.

“I’ve also had my cousins helping me out with packaging and the rest of my family helping with deliveries, which has meant the hardest parts for any new business haven’t been that hard because I’ve had their support.

“At the beginning, I was making everything myself, sourcing everything and doing all the deliveries for 10 to 12 hours every Sunday. Now I’m still the head chef, I taste and keep an eye on everything that goes out, but I also have younger chefs who’ll be able to grow into that role.”

With so much competition in the meal prep sector, Max is hoping he has the USPs to stand out.

He added:

“I look at the big companies and think, I’m going to be a proper pain in your a**e!” My business model is I don’t want to be a factory or assembly line, the premise is real chefs, real food, me going to the organic farm and knowing where the meat comes from.

“People know I care about their food because it’s what I eat myself and what I feed my family. If I wouldn’t feed it to them, I wouldn’t feed it to you and a massive factory can’t say that.

“I don’t trap people into packages either. With me you can go through the website or just text me and say ‘can I have 10 meals next week?’ and it’s like texting your mate. You can get it for one week, four weeks, and you’re not locked in.”

Max’s menus come out on Tuesday, last orders are on Fridays and the deliveries in Liverpool are on Sundays.

He commented:

“My plan is to go national, but the main thing is I want to look after Liverpool and be Liverpool’s meal prep service. I want to be the guy you think of when you want your meals and you want your week sorted.”