TASTE
Prepping for the Unpreppable
Meal prep entrepreneurs saw big growth during the pandemic — and challenges in ensuing months
BY Lindsay Oxford
City Kitchen Sacramento is one of many meal prep businesses that saw a spike in business during the pandemic as more people ate at home .
PHOTO COURTESY OF ERICA CERVANTEZ
Rebecca Lujan Loveless was at the top of her game as 2020 started . Her direct-to-driveway meal preparation business , City Kitchen Sacramento , was thriving . When restaurants began to shutter due to coronavirus pandemic restrictions just a few months later , she saw her business increase at breakneck speed .
“ For the first four or five months of the pandemic … I think it was close to tripling our weekly-slash-monthly revenue ,” Loveless says . “ We were on a roll financially .”
While nearly every other niche of the food industry lost its footing in the pandemic , one had the potential to thrive : meal delivery services . Services like Blue Apron and Purple Carrot are go-tos for people who like to cook but not shop , and fully-prepared meals such as what City Kitchen Sacramento provides are a low-effort option for those who don ’ t want to rely on gluey frozen TV dinners or do the cooking themselves . Both kinds of services became a no-brainer for those who could afford them as restaurants began to shut down and grocery store precautions became difficult to navigate .
Sacramento has no shortage of meal prep entrepreneurs , but their seemingly more resilient business models have not made them immune to pandemicrelated challenges , especially for those who cook in health departmentapproved commercial kitchens and don ’ t try to fly under the radar of state and local licensing requirements . Even those businesses that thrived during the early days of the pandemic had hurdles in the ensuing months .
July 2021 | comstocksmag . com 21