TASTE
Kimberley’s Kitchen meals come in two
main meal plan varieties, one vegan and the
other is for omnivores, roughly based on the
Mediterranean diet.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KIMBERLEY’S KITCHEN
Pro delivers meals to all contiguous 48
states through UPS, with subscribers
concentrated in California. (Sartori
declined to share the number of sub-
scribers, but says demand has increased
since the shelter-in-place order.)
Improvements in e-commerce and
shipping — and consumers’ trust in the
system — are key to the growth of meal
prep delivery, says Greg Connolly, who
uses FedEx and Golden State Overnight
to send Trifecta meals. “The internet
seems safe now, and food just happened
to be one of the last market segments to
move to e-commerce,” he says. Ad-
vancements such as vacuum-sealed
packaging, dry-ice chilling and reliable
overnight delivery help ensure the safety
of fresh food products, and Connolly
credits Amazon for fostering consumers’
comfort with “ordering what’s largely
one of the most intimate things you can
order, your food, from the internet.”
Not all meal prep companies have
Amazon ambitions. In Sacramento,
many operate on a local scale, preparing
dozens or hundreds of meals weekly and
delivering them with personal vehi-
cles. Some work illegally out of home
kitchens (California’s cottage food law
allows a short list of products that pose
26
comstocksmag.com | May 2020
low food-safety risks, such as candy
and cookies, to be sold out of homes).
One exception is Kimberley’s Kitchen,
owned by former supply chain manager
Kimberley Bernhardt. After starting a
cottage food business that sold approved
foods like dried soup mixes and spice
blends, Bernhardt used her 15 years of
supply chain expertise to build one of Sac-
ramento’s only commissary kitchens. To-
day, she runs a subscription meal service
out of the kitchen and rents the kitchen by
the hour to caterers or entrepreneurs who
want to grow beyond the cottage food law.
Kimberley’s Kitchen meals come in
two main varieties, one vegan and the
other inspired by the vegetable-
forward, seafood-rich diet Bernhardt
ate during her adolescence in Greece.
But the company’s small scale allows
her to offer many more varieties tai-
lored to customers’ specifications,
she says. (Her delivery range generally
stays within the Sacramento region.)
“We have a more low-carb option
that we started doing, initially, for one
customer,” says Bernhardt. She sent out
vegan meals without potatoes, grains or
pasta, and in two months, the custom-
er had lost 20 pounds. “Because we’re
local and relatively small, and I know all
my customers, I can do variations like
that which, probably, if you’re signing
up for one of those really large services,
might not work so well,” she says.
Despite the national status of meal
prep, Bernhardt’s business is growing
steadily. “We’re gaining more customers
than we’re losing in any given week, which
is good,” she says. “The kitchen I have
right now could probably easily double
what we’re doing.” After the coronavi-
rus shelter-in-place orders, she had a
spate of cancellations from customers
who said they had less money to spend
— but an increase in mail orders for
her original product, dry soup mixes.
If Sacramento’s meal prep scene
turns out to be a bubble, Bernhardt has
a backup plan. Her kitchen rental spaces
are in high demand, and she also does
event catering — meal prep on a larger
scale. She hopes to revive this part of her
business once the coronavirus crisis re-
solves. “I’m in business to be in business,”
she says. “So if something doesn’t work
… instead of trying to get the customers
to want it, I change the business.”
Jennifer Fergesen is assistant editor
of Comstock’s. Read more at jcfrgsn.
journoportfolio.com.