Ten Years of Prep Kitchen: Our Founders’ Story

We can hardly believe it, but Prep Kitchen is celebrating its tenth birthday this year!

To celebrate our decade of success, we sat down with co-founders Mark Morley and Will Fishenden to reflect on how the business began, the early struggles, and how far they’ve come, from hand-packing meals in a tiny kitchen to producing over 130,000 meals every week.

How did Prep Kitchen start?

Mark: Will and I first met at university and quickly discovered a shared entrepreneurial drive. After successfully building and exiting a business together, we were ready for a new challenge.

The spark for Prep Kitchen came from a very personal place - both of us had gained weight due to poor nutrition choices after university, and we both shared a passion for great food. When we started our fitness journey, meal prepping was either bland, restrictive, or felt like a chore. We were frustrated by the lack of fitness food options available at the time.

Will: We wanted to create a solution that made dieting effortless - healthy meals that people would actually crave. Food that felt like a joy, not a punishment! That mix of personal need and entrepreneurial ambition became the foundation for Prep Kitchen.

What were the early days like?

Will: The beginnings were scrappy. We started out working in a small restaurant kitchen, cooking every meal ourselves, sealing them one by one, and making local deliveries in our own cars. We designed and prepped all the meals ourselves at the start. My family’s been in the restaurant business for years, and that experience definitely helped us to keep standards high.

Mark: There were constant battles to win. Packaging failed, vans broke down, and there were nights we worked right through with no sleep - powered by caffeine, loud music, and a fantastic core team that shared our passion. One night, the electricity shorted every few minutes, and we had to hand-pack every meal wearing head torches!

They were tough, but those early struggles built resilience, and every setback sparked an innovation: stronger packaging, better logistics, step-by-step scaling. We were learning everything on the job, and ploughing everything - profits, sweat, heart and soul - back into the business.

Was there a turning point that changed everything?

Mark: When COVID hit, demand exploded almost overnight. From cooking hundreds of meals a week, Prep Kitchen suddenly had to find a way to feed tens of thousands. It was make-or-break time: our greatest challenge but our biggest opportunity.

Will: It was the steepest of learning curves, where long days blurred into longer nights. At times, the team essentially lived at the kitchen, fuelled by adrenaline and determination. That period cemented the culture of Prep Kitchen: adaptability, teamwork, and relentless focus on getting meals into people’s hands when they needed them most.

What does success look like for Prep Kitchen today?

Will: From those humble beginnings, we now operate from a 50,000 sq ft site producing over 130,000 meals weekly - that means someone is eating a Prep Kitchen meal every four seconds! The sky’s the limit - we’ve got capacity for 400,000 meals per week, and our ambition is for someone to be eating a Prep Kitchen meal every second - that’s a million meals a week!

Mark: We’ve achieved all this without a penny of external investment. We’ve built the business bootstrapped from day one. That’s something we’re really proud of.

Will: We also still employ trained chefs to design and oversee food production. Many of them are highly talented but want more stability than the long hours typical in hospitality. It’s great to be able to offer them that and use their talent and expertise to keep the quality of our meals at a really high level.

What makes Prep Kitchen different?

Mark: It’s always been about more than just food. We’ve been transparent about nutrition and macros from the start, and that’s helped us build lasting trust with fitness enthusiasts, athletes, and busy professionals.

Will: The business has also made giving back part of its DNA. Giving back is part of who we are, from donating surplus meals to food banks to feeding thousands in need at Christmas, and supporting community projects through ambassadors like Eddie Hall.

Mark: Above all, we remain relentless about solving the same problem it set out to fix at the beginning: helping people achieve their goals with food that excites, sustains, and never compromises on flavour or trust.

What have you learned along the way?

Will: Start with the problem. Prep Kitchen was built to solve our own challenge with nutrition, and we’re still relentlessly focused on solving that for our customers.

Mark: Stay close to the customer. We’ve always evolved with demand and acted on feedback.

Will: Work to your strengths: I lead operations and product; Mark drives growth and vision. That balance has been key.

Mark: Never compromise. Flavour and trust are non-negotiable. They’ve been our pillars from the very beginning, and they always will be.

Celebrate with us!

This milestone has been a great opportunity to reflect on how far we've come, and to get excited about what lies ahead. It’s clear to see what’s made Prep Kitchen the unique, dynamic, and innovative company it is today. We hope you’re as proud to be part of the PK journey as we are, and if you haven’t joined the community yet, now’s the time. Ours is an inclusive space where everyone’s welcome, no matter how big or small their goals are.

To celebrate our tenth year, we’re bringing back one of the OG Prep Kitchen dishes: New Orleans BBQ Chicken, a bold, smoky, flavour-packed dish that helped put us on the map.

We’re also shining a light on the meal that’s really stood the test of time: our classic Slow-Cooked Beef Bolognese, which has never left the menu since day one!