Colleagues at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP law firm were stunned when Rahim Talib announced he was swapping pinstripe suits for coveralls to work in a dairy business.
Talib is milking a small fortune – but not exactly the cows, however. Meadowfresh Dairy Corp., the company he took over in 2004 after he put together a small, private, passive investor group to support the acquisition, buys all its raw milk from dairy farms and processes it into products like yogurt and sour cream at a high-tech manufacturing facility in Port Coquitlam.
From revenues of $2 million in 2004 and a staff of nine, 38-employee Meadowfresh is now raking in $14 million annually.
After four years as a corporate M&A lawyer at BLG, Talib left legal practice to act upon a strong desire to develop and progress in business.
“I was finding myself in the legal realm being more fascinated with what my clients’ stories were and how they were doing in business than papering or driving them through their transactions,” said Talib.
With no prior experience in dairy, food processing, distribution or manufacturing, he learned the business on the fly, driven by a personal goal of positively impacting a million people in his lifetime.
Talib is also well connected within the Ismaili Muslim community, focusing his energy on caring for the underprivileged and marginalized as well as providing professional and business opportunities to youth and young entrepreneurs.
Meadowfresh specializes in the wholesale dairy market, and its small size and flexibility allows it to cater to unique interests and tastes.
“The world of dairy is very challenging,” said Talib. “It’s very intense and very difficult for a small dairy to survive unless, in my view, the dairy really emphasizes its niche business opportunity.” •
