A brilliant business model.

[rivka]

I'm thinking I might do this:

Simply sign up for a session and choose the items you wish to make from our monthly menu. We have fully equipped stations, with fresh ingredients sliced, diced, and ready to go. You simply follow the posted directions, tweak the food to your family’s specific tastes (Don’t like onions? Ditch the onions! Love garlic? Add more!), assemble the meal in the pans and freezer bags we provide, and presto!

Each meal serves 6 people, or can be split into smaller packages for smaller families. We've created family-friendly recipes specially designed to be frozen and heated when you need them. After two hours with us, you can stock your freezer with a number of "ready-to-cook" dishes you made and that your family will love throughout the month.

Sixteen meals-for-three would be $155 - which works out to much less money than takeout food, for better nutrition. And while it would certainly be much cheaper to make and freeze food myself, realistically speaking, I have just enough energy to shop and cook for one set of meals every week, in addition to working full time, gestating (which takes an unbelievable amount of energy), and getting things ready for the baby. I don't think I would have the energy to do two sets of meals from scratch. So it's very appealing to think of someone else doing all the shopping, prepwork, and cleanup.

Looking at their menus, I see plenty of things we would enjoy eating. It looks like it's main course-oriented, and so we'd want to supplement a lot of the entrees with vegetables or bread or rice. But that's easy enough to do at the last minute, and wouldn't take a lot of cooking.

Someone had a fantastic idea, here. What a great business model.

Comments

[eeyorerin]

What a great idea to help busy people. It seems ideal for squirrelling away food before Lil Critter makes her Grand Appearance.

Quick veggie accompaniments could include salad in a bag, or a lot of grocery stores are starting to sell bags of washed, peeled, and chopped vegetable mixes that you could steam or microwave or saute really quickly.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We don't even mind good-quality frozen vegetables. Our supermarket carries a nice organic line, for example. But yeah, it's not hard here to find prewashed and cut-up fresh veggies and fruit.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I saw a spot on them on our local TV news magazine show, and am utterly entranced. If they were kosher, I'd be spending the requisite chunk of my grocery budget there every month. I hope they make zillions of dollars and open a shop in every city in the US and Canada.

Wish I'd thought of it. :)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, do they have one near Boston? That's not listed in the store locator thingy I saw, but it would be perfect for my sister, who is usually too tired to cook after work. Do you remember if it was the same brand name?

Wish I'd thought of it. :)

Since there isn't a kosher version yet, you still could. :-)

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

This is so clever! Yes, I think you should try this, if only so that I get to hear more about the set-up and the food.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I't clever. I'm curious as to whether it's a sustainable business model.

B

[rivka.livejournal.com]

What makes you wonder about that? Do you think that it should cost more, or that it wouldn't be very popular?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I don't think they'll get the volume of clientele that they need. It seems like a novelty more than a sustainable business.

That being said, I would like something like this to succeed. It's a really good idea.

B

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Wow, I completely disagree. I think their target market is working mothers who are relatively financially comfortable and feel guilty about not cooking enough meals from scratch for their families, and I think the number of those women is legion.

They're also presenting themselves as a social opportunity for busy working moms. When I booked my session, I discovered that lots of people are booking in groups - the Mom's Club of this, the mothers of That Church, etc. It's a way to carve out adults-only social time that you don't have to feel guilty about. (Um, not that *I* would feel guilty about wanting adult social time, but I think it's a common emotional reaction for their target market.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Maybe so. Plus, so many people don't know how to cook anymore, so maybe the people who go will do so because they want to learn some stuff about how to make dinner.

I'm from another planet, though. I certainly qualified as a busy working mom (full time job, single mom of two in school, full time student taking 3 to 5 classes per semester) but even if I'd been able to afford this (which I couldn't), I'd never had signed up for it. I already knew how to make quick scratch meals. Which lead to such interesting moments as the kids fighting over whose turn it was to season the scratch spaghetti sauce.

If I'm right, then this business will evolve to include some larger teaching component, because that is part of what the people who use the service are looking for.

My mother had a subscription to Family Circle magazine in the 1970s. I find it exceedingly odd that the women who were its primary audience are still around and that they are younger than I am.

There's a cultural boat here that I completely missed.

K.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I am always amazed to come across adults who don't know how to cook (which includes my husband, although (a) the amazement has worn off over our seven years together, and (b) he is now learning).

But I was also shocked to discover that a significant number of families don't even eat together. (About 25% of families with children eat together less than 4 times per week.) In some of these families one of the adults prepares one meal and leaves it for everyone else, but in others the fridge is just stocked with food and people forage. So kids eat a lot of mac and cheese or sandwiches or Lean Cuisines, and don't grow up with having cooking modeled for them.

Not in my family, damn it. I enjoy cooking from scratch.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

The question is whether people are booking events because of the movelty, or whether it will sustain. I suspect the former, although I'd rather if you were right and I was wrong.

B

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

they started here, and now have two locations in the twin cities. i've gone twice, and i like it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Is the food tasty? And do the portion sizes work out the way they're supposed to? I was wondering about that because some of the calorie levels seem kind of low.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i tend to figure that their six people is my four people. but yes, i think their food is tasty.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

That sounds fantastic! If I had more freezer room, I'd be tempted to try it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

One thing they suggest is that you can split with someone else. Like, you and I could go together and each take home half of each dish.

Not right now, I mean, because I'm going to be trying to majorly stock up my freezer. But in the future. The newspaper article where I found out about it says that some people bring along a bottle of wine to share with their friends - it could make for a fun afternoon.

[ckd]

Wow, that and a rice cooker and you're set!

I hope this idea does well and spreads, because it manages to get economies of scale in both buying and preparing, with what sounds like a large dose of fun/cameraderie to boot.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

The crap job would be doing all the prep.

K. ['Here, dice this 50 lb. bag of onions"]

[ckd]

Here, dice this 50 lb. bag of onions

Two words, via Cook's Illustrated: swim goggles.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I used to use goggles all the time when I cut onions until I got contact lenses.

B

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Surely they use big industrial-size food processors. I hope so, anyway.

[geekchick]

What a great idea! If there was one a wee bit closer to me, I'd definitely do this.

[pbrim.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.dreamdinners.com/) is another franchise with the same general idea that I have been looking into. They are a little more expensive, at least in this area: about $200 for 12 entrees or $110 for 6.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, that does sound interesting.

Coincidentally, I came home last night to find a flyer announcing that Schwan's Food Delivery Service (http://www.schwans.com/) is now available where I live. Considering that, until now, the only thing I could get delivered to my door was pizza and Chinese food, it's tempting. But on thumbing through their catalogue, I'm finding an awful lot of breaded-and-stuffed "standard American-style" dishes, which aren't really the kinds of things I favor.

The sort of thing you describe seems as if it would be much easier to adapt to one's own tastes. I like unusual herbs and spices, for instance, and it would be relatively easy to open the containers before you freeze them and add those kinds of things from your own pantry...

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The sort of thing you describe seems as if it would be much easier to adapt to one's own tastes. I like unusual herbs and spices, for instance, and it would be relatively easy to open the containers before you freeze them and add those kinds of things from your own pantry...

Or, to some extent, while you're there...

Q. We love (we hate) spicy food. Can we adjust the recipes?
A. ABSOLUTELY. Any spice you’ll need is available. Our skilled staff can also help you adapt recipes if you don’t care for a particular ingredient. (from the FAQ)

...although who knows what their definition of "any spice you'll need" is. I'll be sure to report back. But yeah, I'm really hyped on the flexibility and adaptability. Even when I follow a recipe, I adjust the seasonings for our tastes. I wouldn't be interested in something like this if all the food was supposed to come out the same.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Cool ... (OK, my foodie brain is sneering, "Oh, yeah? I bet they don't have Szechuan flower pepper!" but I just told it to shut up...)

If you do try this, be sure to give us a review!

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I'm giggling at synchronicity. I just told vgqn I'd eat a lot more butternut squash if I could buy it already peeled and cut up and voila!

This sounds as if it would be absolutely perfect for a new mom who works! Hope it turns out well for you.

MKK

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's my thought, too. People don't want to do their own prep work to cook from scratch.

K.

[dafna]

There are a few of those (not the same company, but the same idea) out here and everyone I know who's done it has loved it. In particular, my friends with the 1-year-old twins started doing it about 6 months ago and think it's saved their sanity.

[lcohen]

well this is handier than waiting for me to show up and cook chili for you.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe me: I still expect chili. :-)

[lcohen]

believe me, i'll still cook you chili!

next fall, at a guess. do you have a really really big pot?