From Zero to Acquisition: Tessa van Meerten's Foodprepper Story

Dr. Niklas Richter · 2026-06-25

April 2020. The company where Tessa van Meerten worked went bankrupt due to COVID-19. That same month, she founded Foodprepper, a meal box service for busy families who want healthy, home-cooked dinners without the hassle. She started with zero startup capital. Today, Foodprepper delivers across Belgium and has been part of Smartmat (the company behind Foodbag) since 2024. In this honest conversation, Tessa shares how she turned a vague dream into a concrete business, why she undervalued her own time in the early days, and the moment she realized growth without outside investment was impossible. ### From Dream to Deliveries Tessa didn't have a business plan. She had a problem: her own family was too busy to cook healthy meals. So she started prepping meals for a few friends. "I never thought of it as a business at first," she says. "I just wanted to help." But word spread. Soon she had more orders than she could handle. She was cooking, packing, delivering, and handling customer service all alone. "I was working 80-hour weeks and still not charging for my time," she recalls. "I thought passion was enough. It's not." ### The Pivot to Data-Driven Decisions Tessa admits she relied too much on intuition. "I'd make decisions based on gut feeling, and sometimes I was wrong. I lost money on ingredients I didn't need." So she learned to trust the numbers. Track costs. Analyze margins. "Once I started looking at the data, I could see exactly where I was bleeding cash and where I was making a profit." ### Finding Her First Investor By early 2023, Tessa knew she couldn't grow without capital. She pitched her business to local investors. "The first few said no. They didn't believe a meal box service could scale." But she kept refining her pitch. Finally, she found an investor who believed in her vision. That funding allowed her to hire staff, invest in better packaging, and expand her delivery zone. ### The Acquisition by Smartmat In 2024, Smartmat acquired Foodprepper. Tessa stayed on as a manager. "Letting go of full control was hard. But now I can focus on strategy, not just survival." She works on the business rather than in it. "I used to spend 10 hours a week just on invoicing. Now that's automated. I can actually think about the next big idea." ### What She'd Do Differently If she could start over, Tessa says she would: - Charge for her time from day one. - Build a simple financial model before launching. - Hire a part-time assistant earlier. - Say no to customers who weren't profitable. ### Lessons for Every Entrepreneur Tessa's journey is a masterclass in resilience. She went from zero to acquisition in four years. She learned that passion opens doors, but data keeps them open. She learned that asking for help is not weakness. And she learned that sometimes the best way to grow is to let go. > "I used to think being an entrepreneur meant doing everything myself. Now I know it means building a team that can do things better than I ever could." ### A Special Offer for Our Readers Want to try Foodprepper? Visit their website and use code ONDERNEMER45 at checkout to get $15 off your first three orders. That's about $45 in total savings on healthy, pre-prepped meals. ### Subscribe and Share If you found Tessa's story valuable, subscribe to our podcast and leave a five-star review. More episodes are available at [www.belgische-ondernemers.be](https://www.belgische-ondernemers.be) (no follow). Thanks to our partners: [Teamleader](https://www.teamleader.be) (no follow) and [Cloudpoint](https://www.cloudpoint.be) (no follow), the IT partner for every SME.