Céline Callejon developed a Puerto Rican pique-style hot sauce called Épicée and then shifted to meal prep during the pandemic .
PHOTO COURTESY OF CÉLINE CALLEJON
vulnerable seniors , jumpstarted that new business niche . She used Great Plates feedback to fine-tune the recipes marketed to older customers .
Like Loveless , the struggles of the past year seem to have made Bernhardt more ambitious : She is working on a second product line and is in negotiations for restaurant space . The restaurant wouldn ’ t replace any of the other revenue streams ; rather , it would be another spoke in the Kimberley ’ s Kitchen wheel . “ The meal prep will always keep on chugging along ,” she says . “ That ’ s nice , but I ’ m kind of casting my net a little wider … like what else do I want to diversify into at this point ?”
Rebooting at the right time
Céline Callejon attended one session of the Alchemist Community Development Corporation ’ s Alchemist Kitchen Incubator Program before stay-at-home orders shifted the selective program online . Callejon ’ s 15 years in food service had her poised to use the incubator ’ s resources to create a business plan to open a cafe in line with her health-conscious values .
The incubator ’ s participants — its first full cohort — were all suddenly faced with retooling their business plans with no indication of what the next year would bring . For Callejon , that was a shift from planning for a full restaurant to developing a Puerto Rican pique-style hot sauce , christened Épicée (“ spicy ” in French ).
And then , in the midst of all of it , Callejon experienced a pandemic-related layoff from her job in corporate dining . With commercial kitchen space already available as a result of Épicée , Callejon pivoted to meal prep to make ends meet . “ The focus was small-batch healthy meals , well balanced , brown rice instead of white rice , the right amount of proteins , the right amount of vegetables ,” Callejon says . “ Small batch , everything is cooked from scratch , and it ’ s good for you .”
Her initial customers were her fellow gym patrons , but her customer base gradually expanded via social media . “ It was a very small scale , obviously , but about 75 meals a week .” While Callejon describes it as small scale , part of the meal prep plan was an opening act for a later restaurant .
“ I think that ultimately elements of the meal prepping service would also be part of that restaurant idea ,” Callejon says . “ It would be the same kind of recipes . So I also wanted to get the feedback on the food itself .”
When Callejon returned to work , the meal plans were put on hold and Épicée returned to the fore , though the original plan — the cafe — remains . She says her plan is to sell Épicée at farmers markets through the end of this year to gauge the reception , “ and kind of grow from there .”
Lindsay Oxford is a Sacramento-based freelance writer . She is a former arts editor at Sacramento News & Review . She writes about music , vegan food and pop culture weirdness . Find her at lindsayoxford . com .
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