The Kelowna Family Kitchen That Carried Ukraine Across an Ocean
Founded by Tetiana Kopets and her family after relocating from Ukraine, Ready To Cook is preserving the taste of home through hand-rolled perogies, cabbage rolls, borsch, and small-batch cooking.
August 24, 2026 · By Justin Plosz · Kelowna, British Columbia · Business · 7 min read read
A Family Recipe Can Be a Form of Arrival
When Tetiana Kopets and her family relocated from Ukraine to Canada, they brought more than luggage. They brought the recipes, techniques, and habits of a kitchen that had already taught them how to make a home feel like itself.
In Kelowna, those recipes became Ready To Cook. Founded in 2023, the family business began with a direct idea: make the food they grew up with by hand, in small batches, and share it with a new community. The result is a freezer filled with perogies, cabbage rolls, borsch, and other Ukrainian classics, but the deeper story is about continuity.
A family kitchen is often an archive without shelves. A pinch, a fold, the way dough is sealed, the moment a filling is ready — these are forms of knowledge that can be difficult to write down because they live in the hands. Ready To Cook turns that knowledge into something Kelowna can taste.
Nothing Is “Inspired By”
Ready To Cook’s most revealing promise is also its most modest. The company says its dishes are not “inspired by” family food; each one comes from a recipe a member of the family actually grew up eating. “We’re not creative — we’re faithful,” the business writes.
That is a striking position in a food culture that often rewards reinvention. The Kopets family is not trying to turn Ukrainian food into a themed experience or smooth away the details that make it specific. The goal is to keep the recipes recognizable: the comfort of a familiar filling, the generosity of a cabbage roll, the pleasure of a bowl of borsch that tastes like somebody took their time.
The food is prepared from scratch, with no preservatives, and flash-frozen within hours of cooking. Freezing is not presented as a shortcut. It is the practical bridge between a working family kitchen and the people who want a real meal ready in their own homes.
The Okanagan Is Part of the Recipe
Although the story begins in Ukraine, Ready To Cook is rooted in the ingredients and relationships around Kelowna. The company says it works directly with growers and producers across the Okanagan and Fraser Valley, and its sourcing page names the places behind the food.
Cabbage and beets come from Lake Country, cottage cheese from Armstrong, honey from Kelowna, and wild blueberries from the Fraser Valley. Potatoes come from Pemberton, while pork comes from Salmon Arm. Each ingredient carries a geography before it reaches the kitchen, and the business makes that geography visible instead of hiding it behind a generic “local” label.
That transparency gives the food a second identity. These are Ukrainian family recipes, but they are being made in British Columbia with the produce, dairy, meat, and community available here. The kitchen is not recreating a distant past. It is building a living version of home in the Okanagan.
A Freezer Full of Possibility
Ready To Cook’s growth has been deliberately tangible. What began in 2023 has expanded to two storefronts, a dedicated production kitchen, and a Perogies Bar inside The District Mall on Bernard Avenue. At Orchard Park, customers can take home hand-rolled classics; downtown, the same recipes are served hot at the counter.
The model understands the different ways people need food to work. Some customers want a bag of perogies waiting in the freezer for a busy evening. Others want to stop for a hot plate of Ukrainian food in the middle of the day. In both cases, the business keeps the essential promise intact: real recipes, made by hand, with no shortcuts.
That is what makes Ready To Cook more than a convenient meal brand. It is a small family business turning displacement into connection, and turning the private language of a kitchen into a public place where Kelowna can gather. The most moving part is not that the recipes survived the journey. It is that they are still being made for someone.
Key takeaways
- Ready To Cook is a Ukrainian-Canadian family business founded in Kelowna in 2023.
- Tetiana Kopets and her family built the business after relocating from Ukraine to Canada.
- The menu includes hand-rolled perogies, cabbage rolls, borsch, and other family recipes.
- The company says its food is made from scratch, without preservatives, and flash-frozen within hours.
- Ready To Cook works with growers and producers across the Okanagan and Fraser Valley.
- The business now operates at Orchard Park Mall and The District Mall, including a downtown Perogies Bar.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Ready To Cook in Kelowna?
- Ready To Cook is a Ukrainian-Canadian family business in Kelowna that makes hand-rolled perogies, cabbage rolls, borsch, and other family recipes from scratch in small batches.
- Who founded Ready To Cook?
- Ready To Cook was founded in 2023 by Tetiana Kopets and her family after they relocated from Ukraine to Canada.
- Does Ready To Cook use preservatives?
- The company says its dishes contain no preservatives and are flash-frozen within hours of cooking.
- Where can I find Ready To Cook in Kelowna?
- Ready To Cook lists locations at Orchard Park Mall and The District Mall on Bernard Avenue, where its Perogies Bar serves ready-to-eat Ukrainian food.
- Where does Ready To Cook source its ingredients?
- Ready To Cook says it works directly with growers and producers in the Okanagan and Fraser Valley, including suppliers in Kelowna, Lake Country, Armstrong, Salmon Arm, Pemberton, and the Fraser Valley.
← Back to PRC Newsroom · Public Relations Canada
Enable JavaScript to view the interactive version of this page.