Find an answer to the eternal “What’s for dinner?”

What’s for dinner tonight? When am I going to have time to plan, go grocery shopping, and cook the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner? How often do these questions come to mind?

It is difficult for working people to spend time in the kitchen and eat balanced meals. In addition, the economic downturn makes people more careful about eating out.

So what is the alternative?

What are meal assembly kitchens?
Meal assembly businesses or meal preparation businesses -- offer meals that are assembled and ready to cook. For a small cost (from $2.00 to $7.00 per serving), it is an easy alternative for busy people who wish to eat healthy meals at home, without having to go grocery shopping or assemble the ingredients.

Jim Eddy, owner of Dream Dinners in Wheat Ridge, Colo., explains what drives customers to his store.

“We answer the age old question: what’s for dinner?” Eddy wrote in an e-mail interview. “When you consider how much time the average family spends in planning, shopping and preparing dinner, it’s no wonder that more and more people have turned to fast food.  We offer a simple solution.  Guests who use our service will find that most of our meals are ready in 20 minutes or less!  That leaves time for the important things in life: family, fun, and self.”

How does it work?
Meal assembly kitchens provide their customers with ingredients, and recipes. Their customers make an appointment to assemble their meals in the professional kitchen provided by the meal assembly store. At the end of the session, customers go home with a month worth of meals that are freezable.

Meal preparation businesses assemble the meals for their customers. Then, customers can stop by the store at any time, and pick up a meal than is ready to cook.

Four storeowners explain the particularity of their businesses.
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How did it start?
According to Bert Vermeulen, a consultant to the meal assembly industry operating www.easymealprep.com web site, the concept of meal preparation business originated in the Seattle area in 1999.

This business was called Month of Meals. Its creator, Kay Conley, had a web site for people to sign up, and then meet to cook a month worth of meals.

In 2002, Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna started a business called Dream Dinners, based on the same concept.

“Stephanie and Tina decided to franchise this and promote it,” said Vermeulen. ”Their idea became the largest
franchise in the industry. Their promotion of the concept helped establish the industry in its present form.”

Overtime, the business model has evolved from the meal-assembly kitchens options to the pick-up ready-to-cook meals.

“People choose the ‘Suppers to Go’ option more often now,” said Diane Herman, owner of Supper Solutions in Fort Collins, Colo.

According to Vermeulen, it is much harder for storeowners to retain customers with the meal-preparation business.

 “Pickup meals work for a while, but it is much harder to establish customer loyalty: there are so many other places where one can pick up meals to be cooked at home,” said Vermeulen.

Has this industry been affected by the economic slow down?
The meal preparation industry seems to be thriving during a time when most businesses struggle to make ends meet.
Meal preparation businesses buy ingredients in bulk in order to provide low servings cost.

“The economy has forced many people to change the way they eat,” said Eddy. “They eat out less, but still want high quality, simple meals: we are the next logical step. “

Diane Herman, owner of Supper Solutions in Fort Collins, Colo., agrees:

“The economy has been interesting this year,” Herman said. “I have seen it drive many people into looking more closely at their food budget. This has actually helped me when they see that they can actually save money using Supper Solutions.”

However, some report a slow down in their business. Beckie Hemmerling, owner of The Organic Dish in Boulder, Colo., says that she is down 5 percent, even with having a close relationship with her customers:

“We are pretty close to our customers, so we have a huge retention rate,” Hemmerling said in a phone interview.

All storeowners expressed the difficulty to market this unique business model, as people still don’t really understand to concept.

“People don’t understand our concept: it’s difficult to get more new people in,” Hemmerling said.

At this time, word-of–mouth seems to be the best advertising option for meal preparation businesses.

Who uses meal assembly kitchens?
Andy Potter, founder of Hand it to Mom in Evergreen, Colo., summarized the typical profile of meal assembly/preparation customers.

Where can I find a meal assembly kitchen?
“There are currently about 650 meal assembly businesses distributed around the US and Canada,” said Vermeulen.


View Meal Assembly Businesses in a larger map

For meal assembly kitchen outside the Front Range area, please check the following web sites:
Easy Meal Prep
Meal Assembly

Other Meal Assembly Businesses

Contemporary Cook 
Super Suppers
Let's Dish
Dinners Ready
Dinner My Way
Entrees Made Easy
Dream Dinners
Supper Thyme USA


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Putting a Trend To the Test 

2009 Beaujolas Nouveau is almost here!

As every year, the third Thursday of November marks the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. And, as always, Beaujolais Nouveau will display the very first bottles with the 2009 vintage label.

This young wine is made from the gamay grapes in the southern part of Burgundy. The grapes are fermented quickly, which results in a light, fruity, festive and inexpensive wine. It usually marks the end of the harvest, and was originally created to use the excess grapes that were not used for other wines.

Beaujolais Nouveau will be available for retail on Thursday, November 19th.

Related articles:

Beaujolais Nouveau is Coming

It's Nouveau and Novello time in Toronto again

Rootstock: Peace, love & beaujolais nouveau

Good Food Around Fort Collins, Colorado

Here is a map of my favorite places to eat around Fort Collins:


View Good Food Around Fort Collins in a larger map

Comments on Meal Assembly Businesses?

I am working on a story about meal assembly businesses such as Super Suppers, Dinners Ready or Dream Dinners. I would love to hear your comments on your experience with meal assembly kitchens: which franchise/ business did you try? How was the food? How often do you use prepared meals?

Please share your experience with the rest of us!

A deeper look at Raw Foodism

Listen to the story



Raw foodism is a dietary trend and way of life promoting the consumption of uncooked food (food that has not been heated above 118 °F). A person is considered a raw foodist if, at least, three-quarter of his or her diet consist of uncooked, unpasteurized, unprocessed and often organic food.



There are three major types of raw foodists:


•    Raw vegetarians – exclude meat, fish and poultry, but consume eggs and dairy; most foods consumed are raw

•    Raw vegans – exclude all animal products; most foods consumed are raw

•    Raw omnivores - both plant-based and animal based foods are mainly consumed raw



Michelle Finley, a 34-year-old mother of two, adopted the living-food lifestyle almost a year ago.



“I would say I have been raw since December, but I have not been one 100 percent raw,” Finley said. 



Raw foodists believe that heating food above 118°F destroys food's protein and vitamin content, food's natural enzymes, good bacterias and nutrients present in raw food. Furthermore, raw food dieters claim that raw food is “living food”, and add many health benefits to one’s life, such as increased energy, weight loss, reduced risk of heart disease and improved skin appearance. 



“The whole idea is that your body cleanse itself instead of spending time digesting,” Finley said.



Furthermore, raw foodism fans maintain that this diet delays aging, prevents or cures virtually all life-threatening diseases, and increases spiritual enlightenment and inner contentment

.

“If anyone had told me about the spiritual aspect of it, I would have gone raw sooner,” Finley said. “What I experienced is that I feel happier.”



Some may think that raw foodism is a low maintenance diet. It actually requires a lot of preparation time and the right ingredients can be difficult to come by outside major cities. Because ovens are banned, raw food dieters use dehydrators, food processors and juice extractors for the preparation of their meals.

Most of us could probably loose a few pounds, and could eliminate the consumption of unnecessary processed food such as refined sugars or fast food, in order to feel healthier and more energized.

However, nutritionists do not recommend this diet for the long term.

April Brigham, nutritionist and owner of Super Suppers in Fort Collins, Colo., recommends adding raw food to one’s diet, but in moderation.

"I think everybody can use a little bit more raw food in their diet in general," said Brigham. "It is not going to hurt the average person to go on a raw food diet for a week, two weeks, a month even. But you can really get into health problems in the long term."

Nutritionists warn raw food dieters against risk of malnutrition and vitamins and minerals deficiencies.

“ If you are first starting a raw diet, you can experience malnutrition pretty quickly," Brigham said. "The most balanced diet that I have seen throughout my studies is one where you get 30 percent of your calories from fat, at least 30 percent of your calories from proteins, and about 40 percent of your calories from carbohydrates,” Brigham said. “And you can take all your carbohydrates from raw food. That would be great.”



Some of the ingredients used in raw foodism include:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Agave syrup (a natural sweetener)
• Raw cacao
• Nuts and seeds: almonds, cashews, hemp seed nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts...etc
• Coconut oil and butter
• SeaweedBee pollen and honey
• Goji Berries
• Sprouts




 

Restaurants serving raw food



• 105 Degrees

• Pure Food and Wine

• Tasty Harmony

• The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center

• 118 degrees

Twitter embarks into the wine business

Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging site, is embarking into a new venture: wine!

Twitter is launching a wine label called Fledgling Wine in partnership with Crushpad, custom winemaking service based out of San Francisco, and Room to Read, a non-profit organization promoting global education.

Twitter's fans can now pre-order the 2009 Fledging Pinot Noir and the 2009 Fledging Chardonnay for $20.00 per bottle. For each bottle sold, $5.00 will go to Room to Read in order to bring books, libraries and literacy to people in the poorest areas around the world.

With this initiative, Twitter hopes that, by increasing literacy, Twitter will grow as well.

The wine will not be bottled until the fall of 2010. In the meantime, buyers will be able to follow its progression through twitter.com

Twitter breaks into the wine biz 

Twitter Chooses Room to Read as Their First Corporate Social Innovation Partner

Twitter Will Sell No Wine Before Its Time (But They Will Sell Wine)

World Food Day

World Food Day, observed each Oct. 16, is a worldwide event designed to raise awareness about hunger.

World Food Day also marks the anniversary of the day the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which was founded in 1945. The first World Food Day was observed in 1981.

The World Food Day website gives tips on how each one of us can help:

♣    Increase Awareness -- provide a briefing on the issues for the media; promote WFD.
♣    Increase Understanding -- work with schools and colleges; plan a community seminar.
♣    Increase Information -- help in coordinating a research project on community food security.
♣    Increase Support -- hold a fund raiser for local and/or international projects
♣    Increase Advocacy -- seek policy commitments from public officials (or candidates).
♣    Increase Networking -- use WFD to bring together people, ideas and resources.
♣    Increase Year-Around Action-- seek to involve people in on-going service/support.
♣    Increase Impact -- devise a means to measure the year to year progress you are making; consider World Food Day the "annual meeting" for hunger activists.

Colorado State University's Cans Around the Oval Expands to Denver, Castle Rock and Steamboat