Lean Nation: Healthy meals for people on the go

About four years ago, Avi Baruah Chowdhury, a district manager at British American Tobacco, had difficulty controlling her weight. His excess body weight led to several medical complications, including back pain, fatty liver, and others.

He started going to the gym but still struggled to control his weight. Long working hours and irregular eating habits did not help. He realized that he would have to combine his exercise with a healthy diet.

“I tried different diet methods, including keto and intermittent fasting. While I lost some weight, none of them seemed to provide lasting results. It was frustrating to see those gains return so soon after coming off the diet.”

Avi needed a diet he could sustain long term. So he signed up for Lean Nation meal plans. He followed a 1,200-calorie meal plan in five cycles (three meals and two snacks), and within three months, he lost 25 kilograms.

“The Lean Nation diet offers a more permanent solution, moving away from the typical rebound effect associated with many diets,” Avey said of his weight loss journey.

Moreover, eating meals in appropriate portion sizes has helped Avi lead an overall healthy lifestyle. He is now more aware of a balanced diet.

Plant business seeds

Started in 2016, Lean Nation is a venture by four school friends, Aneek Rayan Ilyas, Fuad Abdul Qadir, Kazi Mohtasem Hassan and Nadvi Ahmed, to provide healthy and balanced meals to workers.

Fouad, who is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Lean Nation, stayed in the US for a while where he got used to eating carefully and counting calories.

When he returned to Bangladesh and looked for such food, he was disappointed. He and his business partners recognized a gap in the market in the nutraceuticals industry.

“We had no previous experience in this sector, but we had several restaurant companies (Rice & Noodles, The Bhoj Company), which gave us an added advantage. We could handle the kitchen and logistics part quickly,” Fouad said.

Lean Nation doesn’t have any in-house dietitians, but they frequently consult with the dietitians who approve their menu. Moreover, if the client has his own nutritionist/diet plan, Lean Nation partners with him.

Precise components, simple logistics

Lean Nation not only offers monthly or weekly subscriptions, but also accommodates daily subscriptions, providing flexibility to its customers.

Once the next day’s orders are completed, the chefs go grocery shopping daily, ensuring adherence to fresh food delivery.

Once all the ingredients are purchased, the kitchen comes to life. By midnight, they prepare all the items. Then comes the cooling, packaging and cooling part.

The kitchen staff, consisting of the head chef, sous chef and additional helping hands, is modified based on the demand for their services.

Majority of the company’s clients are from Gulshan and Banani. Hence the kitchen was located in Banani. However, they recently moved to Gulshan.

Deliveries begin at 7 a.m. and end at 9 a.m. All meals, whether dinner or snacks, are delivered in the morning. Participants are asked to cool and heat them before eating.

“Having all the food delivered in the morning is very helpful. On weekdays, they deliver it to my office address and on weekends to my house,” Avi said.

Lean Nation has its own delivery unit, and according to Fouad, this is one of the company’s key strengths. Over its eight years of operation, Lean Nation has served more than 300,000 meals.

Lean Nation’s weekly two-meal plan starts from Tk 6,000, while the monthly two-meal plan is priced at Tk 20,000. For those on the keto diet, options include a two-meal keto plan at Tk 7,500 per week and a four-meal keto plan at Tk 10,000 per week.

In the month of Ramadan, they offer breakfast, dinner and suhoor package (Tk 2,000 per day, Tk 8,000 per week).

Lean Nation’s menu is versatile. You won’t get the same food two days in a row. Some ideal combinations include creamy chicken wraps for breakfast, chicken curry with rice and dal for lunch, muffins and oranges as a snack, and finally brown pasta with marinara for dinner. Or, creamy vanilla oatmeal for breakfast, Korean chicken for lunch, almonds and bananas for a snack, and finally Assam fish curry for dinner.

As of now, Lean Nation delivers within Dhaka city only.

Since its inception, Lean Nation’s biggest challenge has been training chefs because the food they cook must be meticulous.

“The chefs are excellent at what they do and prepare delicious meals. But they are not familiar with the concept of precise measurement. The concept of precise measurements, where one cup is actually one cup, and one tablespoon is precisely one tablespoon, instead this method has been a training challenge,” Fouad says. In our kitchen, it’s bigger than a teaspoon.”

Moreover, organizing the list was also a difficult task, as it is subject to constant modifications. Nadife Ahmed takes care of the menu design and calorie counting. He has done some online courses to educate himself about this and also to train chefs.

“The meals we serve are delicious, satisfying and balanced. Moreover, they are designed to suit the tastes of Bangladeshis,” Fawad added.

For people who are on the go

Both Lean Nation’s meals and logistics are designed for a specific target group – corporate workers who are always on the go.

“It caters to people who have a busy schedule, who want to adopt a healthy lifestyle, but are somehow unable to do so,” Fouad said.

Lean Nation’s clients are very specialized and the company likes it that way.

“Instead of expanding the customer base, we prefer to have repeat customers,” he added.

When asked why the fitness community is not their core clientele, Fouad said, “People who are dedicated to fitness are more active and make an effort to prepare their own meals. Hence, we cater to people who feel a bit relaxed in this.”

However, Lean Nation partners with fitness trainers.

While many entities in the market are involved in similar business ventures, Lean Nation stands out with its own dedicated fan base.

Fouad revealed that during the pandemic, many fitness enthusiasts ventured into entrepreneurship and ran companies to provide healthy meals from their homes.

This not only stimulated the market, but also played a crucial role in educating and expanding the consumer base.

“Many people misunderstand our service as a weight loss challenge, which it is not. We encourage long-term, sustainable dieting and healthy living,” he concluded.