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THEY partnered up to provide a scientific and targeted approach to dieting, and Kate Save and Geoff Draper cut Shark Tank's Janine Allis in as an equal business partner for $200,000.
The founders behind Be Fit Food, which has been doubling business month-on-month, created a prepackaged food business based around ketogenic diets, which is very low in carbohydrates and high in fat.
Kate Save is a clinical dietician while Draper is a bariatric surgeon, and initially Be Fit Food was aimed at post bariatric surgery patients and now their focus is on rapid weight loss for clients who have not had surgery but are looking to shed weight quickly.
"Kate and I met at a weight loss surgery clinic and a big part of that was getting patients to lose weight and over the years it was getting increasingly frustrating getting people to lose weight and to get onto a special diet but the patients would often mess it up in some way because the diet was so complicated," Draper says.
"Basically, we decided we would cut to the chase and just solve this problem ourselves and that's how the business was born, and we knew that nobody else was doing it.
"This is all based on a science which is designed to generate rapid weight loss which is compliant with the nutritional composition as determined by world-wide health science."
After they determined their product was an Australian-first, Draper and Save conducted clinical trials on the food they produced to prove compliance with scientific guidelines for rapid weight loss.
Be Fit Food now produces food that is fully prepared, calorie controlled, portion controlled, nutritious and, importantly, good to eat. Draper and Save spend countless hours creating recipes and 'road testing' them on friends and relatives to make sure they also pass the taste test.
Draper and Save have invested a huge amount of time, and money, into the venture and readily accept they were hoping to do a deal with Janine Allis because of her experience in the food sector.
"We saw an obvious synergy between Be Fit Food and Janine Allis and she has been absolutely fantastic and she's been very generous with her time and her experience," Save says.
With the investment, and Allis on board as an equal partner, Draper and Save aim to take Be Fit Food and grow it as a truly national brand.
As with nearly all startup businesses, sometimes Draper and Save have had to learn the hard way and they've both adopted simple strategies to help them stay the course.
"It's okay to make mistakes but don't do it twice," Save says.
"I'd heard that to succeed in business you need to be passionate about what you do, and that's something we both have total passion," Draper says.
"Passion is what makes this business work. The amount of hours that need to go into this means you have to love it."
Business News Australia
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