Record-setting chef, entrepreneur and Laurier graduate Wallace Wong aims to make mealtime easier with Spatula Foods

April 22, 2024

Laurier grad and trained chef Wallace Wong (BBA ’12) saw the rise in popularity of meal-kit box delivery as an alternative to eating out. As a chef, he didn’t see this as a threat, but an opportunity. With his partners, they took the concept further and created Spatula Foods.  

“What makes Spatula different is really the convenience and the structure and how it’s presented,” says Wong, “Our meals are flash frozen and ready in under 10 minutes. You don't need a cutting board, you don't need other ingredients, you don't need anything except for a pan and a spatula.”  

Wong grew up cooking with his family and competed in culinary events throughout high school, but put that passion on the back burner when he started at Laurier. “After my first year of BBA, I realized I missed cooking and I started reading more cookbooks than my BBA books,” he says with a laugh.  

After class one day, Wong biked from Laurier to Conestoga College and picked up some literature about its culinary arts program. He enrolled shortly after.  “I started my second year in the BBA program at Laurier and my first year in culinary arts at Conestoga the same year,” says Wong. “It taught me a lot about how to balance and organize.”  

He credits faculty and staff at the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics for accommodating his very busy schedule.  

“I would literally go from accounting at Laurier over to Conestoga to learn how to make a mother sauce like bechamel and then run back to marketing class smelling like cheese,” says Wong. “It was hectic, but really fun.”  

Wong’s intense motivation stems from a devastating cancer diagnosis as a teenager. After enduring treatment that included chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant, Wong persevered. 

“It changed my life,” he says. “My first year of university was my first year being cancer free. I learned how fragile life is, that life is a gift.”  

Wong says he still carries lessons learned from his past struggles and has no plans to slow down anytime soon.   

Along with co-founding Spatula Foods, Wong has appeared as a contestant on Top Chef Canada, Chopped and, most recently, Canada’s Got Talent, where he showed off his record-setting knife skills. Those knife skills have helped him cultivate 1.8 million followers on TikTok and two Guinness World Records, for most slices of carrot and most slices of cucumber sliced in 30 seconds while blindfolded, with 122 and 166 slices, respectively. On his TikTok account, Wong finely slices everything from candy to grains of rice.  

Wong and his Spatula Foods colleagues recently appeared on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, where their concept, sales pitch and food offerings impressed. After receiving offers from all five dragons, they chose to partner with Arlene Dickenson, offering Dickenson 10 per cent equity in the company for a $500,000 cash investment.  Wong credits his time in Laurier’s BBA program with preparing him for the opportunity.  

“The final project we had for our BBA program, the pitch competition, was very similar to Dragons’ Den,” he says.   

Wong says it might seem that his success came easily, or that opportunities fell into his lap. However, his path was far from straight – and that’s the message he hopes to pass on to current Laurier students. 

“It takes trying many things, but that’s the beauty of life,” says Wong. “Everybody in university is trying something. No one is going to brand you as a failure if you tried it and it didn't work.”  

Spoken as a true chef, Wong suggests that students get a taste of as many different experiences as they can, until they find what’s right for them.  

“This is the time to mess up and it’s okay,” he says. “One of the biggest things I always talk about is regret. If I chose not to do culinary school while also doing my BBA, I probably would have never became a chef. My whole life experience would be different.”