Justin Cheung was just 18 when he enrolled in an extracurricular group project on sustainability as an SFU Beedie School of Business student. His idea was this: what if we could reduce food waste by turning it into a delicious snack? Cheung developed an idea to make candied, dehydrated citrus peels—a snack he loves and remembers from his childhood in Asia—using the waste being produced by grocery stores.
View this post on Instagram
Cheung brought the concept out of the student group and into a business plan, forming connections with Save on Foods and cold-pressed juice wholesaler, Chasers, to collect discarded orange and lemon peels. The product—Citrus Treats by Second Savour—is manufactured and distributed here in B.C.
In the company’s interim pilot year, Cheung and co. made just $500, but he soon boosted the business with $10,000 from SFU’s e co-op program and pitch competition winnings. Now the founder has had roughly 20 employees, students and contractors, and several partnerships across grocery stores and food manufacturers. According to Cheung, the company closed $100,000 in their most recent fiscal year.
Cheung has plans to take Second Savour national, hoping to stock retail shelves with Citrus Treats (soon to include lime and grapefruit options). “At the end of the day, the mission and vision is great, but people don’t buy your product just purely off of that,” he says. “A lot of our customers, once they like our product and like eating it, say they like our mission as well.”
What’s one leadership principle you live by?
“Giving people a chance to learn.”
See the full list of our 2026 30 Under 30 winners here.
