Between frozen food and TikTok fame, the founder of Cheekies is rewriting what sincerity tastes like

At 28, Nabill Shukry Johary still runs his company the old way — beside his father. It means the days are long, the arguments precise, and the lessons unspoken but ever-present. “My dad is more traditional,” he says.

“He prefers to keep business details private and not really share the behind-the-scenes story. For me, one of the ‘rules’ I break is that I believe in showing a more authentic side of Cheekies on social media.”

That tension — between privacy and presence, legacy and visibility — defines his place in the family business. His father’s generation built quietly, letting the results speak for themselves. Nabill’s prefers conversation, documentation, and transparency.

Yet beneath the contrast, both share a stubborn commitment to humility. “Even as I share our story, I try to carry the humility my dad values,” he says. “So it’s really a balance of both worlds.”

Cheekies, the company they co-run, produces healthy frozen foods designed to rewire how people think about convenience eating. It began as a home-based operation and now runs from a factory and retail network, built around one idea: that frozen food can be good food. 

“A lot of people don’t realise that frozen food, especially when we use blast freezing, can be really high-quality and doesn’t rely on chemicals the way ultra-processed foods do,” he says. “If our company disappeared, the problem of people not understanding the benefits of properly frozen food would still be out there.”

Fulfilment as fuel

Nabill speaks with the quiet certainty of someone who has done every step himself — deliveries, procurement, packing, and posts. “The laziest assumption is that running a food manufacturing company is just about flashy marketing or that it’s easy because we started as a home-based business,” he says.

“People see the end product or the social media content, but they don’t see the long hours, the sweat, and the effort it takes to scale.”

That humility colours even his success. Years ago, he left a stable corporate job — one he admits he enjoyed — to build Cheekies full-time. “Honestly, quitting my 9-to-5 job,” he says, “I really believed I could have had a good career there. But when I saw the business starting to do well, I made the switch. And yeah, when things get tough, I sometimes wonder, ‘What if I had stayed?’”

The question lingers as proof that certainty rarely precedes conviction. What keeps him moving is simpler: “The fulfilment of seeing people enjoy our food and achieve their health goals helps me wonder a lot less about that decision.”

Over time, that fulfilment has widened into something communal. “Success is when everyone around you gets to benefit and thrive — not just my family or staff, but the community, too,” he says. “Success is making an impact and inspiring others, not just through food but by touching their hearts and minds.”

Integrity as inheritance

He means that literally. Cheekies partners with home-based entrepreneurs, mentoring them in packaging, branding, and pricing. Nabill and his team participate in workshops that teach small businesses how to scale responsibly.

“We strive to create impact in every way we can — not just through our food, but also by giving back to the community,” he says. “We actively take part in events that mentor and support home-based businesses, sharing the lessons and experiences we’ve gained along our own journey.”

He also looks further ahead, where the future of food will demand new tools and new empathy. “AI is going to play a huge role, especially in personalising people’s diet journeys and helping brands connect more deeply with customers,” he says.

“Another shift is food for mental health, not just physical health. I think there’s a growing space for foods that help with mental well-being.”

That clarity hints at something more profound than entrepreneurship — a philosophy of nourishment. For Nabill, food is both a product and a medium: a way to show care, to teach patience, to remind people that innovation can coexist with sincerity.

His father built the business quietly; Nabill builds it in public. Between them lies a bridge made not of rebellion but of respect.

What he protects, in the end, is trust — the slow kind that compounds quietly, the kind that cannot be faked online or scaled by marketing. That is what Cheekies sells most of all — not convenience or even health, but the assurance that integrity still and will always have market value.

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