u/beard-wonder93

Odd scenario this afternion at the shop...

We run a meal prep shop, items are refrigerated, not frozen. Grab & go containers, the customers pick from a retail fridge. We also have fresh salad bar, etc.

An older gentlemen came in for the first time this morning:

"Are these meals fresh!?"

Yes sir, we loaded up monday at lunch for walk-ins. Those meals that are left are refrigerated, and you are welcome to purchase any of them.

He says, "These aren't fresh if they were made yesterday., and why are you out of some many things!?"

(I had about 50% of my normal grab & go meals options)

I proceed to open up commercial fridges behind me and show him im totally empty of ingredients, no more raw meats etc. Just a few supplemental items for our salad bar prep.

I tell him "sir, its been a good week of sales so im a bit slim pickings till my next order of fresh ingrediants gets here tomorrow. Then we will do some more cooking.

I tell him, We only buy fresh chicken, beef & pork. Those products are perishable so we make an effort not to buy too much or sit on product longer than we have too.

Sell outs like this are good for business bc it helps use turn inventory. The chicken breast i receive tomorrow will be more fresh than buying a couple extra cases last week and sitting on them until today when id "hopefully" need to do more cooking.

He says "I dont see how a place like this stays in business with half the menu sold out!"

He turns around and leaves.

(We just celebrated 10yrs in business this spring)

Whole scenario was kinda bizarre.

I have a hard time getting out of kitchen mode when I'm not at work.

My wife and I both cook for a living and went to a top culinary school.

Date night, vacations, etc. Its not crippling, but its like I cant stop thinking in work mode.

Id say im a pretty passionate and curious guy in terms of my work, I enjoy watching an efficient kitchen hum along smoothly, while we are out to eat. Especially, if somewhere new.

For example:

On vaction in florida earlier in the year. At local mom and pop seafood restaurant Id say stuff to my wife like:

"Bartender just slipped behind the bar; those don't look like good non-slip kitchen shoes"

"I wonder what they are paying wholesale for this local triggerfish on the special"

Or i will try to food cost my meal while im eating it.

Pretty innocent, but its something im catching myself doing more and more.

Surely im not the only one?

Generally, I'm not real interested in being a food "narc" but I feel I have a small bit of responsibility to the public I guess?

We do meal prep, local pickups only, fresh meal not frozen.

A local married couple that were regular customers of ours have begun to sell meal prep out of their home.

I used to do personal chef work, since that's in a private home and not sold to the public that was fine per health dept. They have the public picking up a perishable, ready to eat item from their home garage. This is not covered under any type of cottage law in our state.

There's plenty of room in the market for other people to do meals, thats not really my grievance. (They are making certain stuff we dont do anyway, im not selling you a microwave salmon meal to stink up your break room at work)

but bc they have 0 food service background its hard for me to overlook pretty egregious food safety stuff when they post on social media; they are social butterfly's. Just literally ignorant of basic food safety stuff.

Example: Cooking chicken breast shirtless in the backyard on his blackstone griddle. Hes buff, big hairy chest. i get it, he wants to take his shirt off outside...thats fine for me and you at home, but put a fucking shirt on if you are taking peoples money.

They cook like they are at home, and thats just not the standard when you start taking people's money.

They were always friendly enough to me, but i don't really know them personally.

They seem to be targeting a more serious health and wellness customer, where I'd say we have more working professionals, busy parents and the casual gym go-er.

Even their food costing doesn't make great sense to me. Its like the priced themselved to undercut every else in the local area by a dollar a meal.

They could totally do things the right way pretty easily, you can rent a day kitchen at local community college insanely cheap, and we have 2 days a week at local farmers market where they could sell and just bring a fridge for people to buy out of.

I've always appreciated the hustle, but im cursed with the knowledge of seeing them wear a glove and then touch their face and hair then touch people's food on Facebook live.

More of a silly note, it looks like they are also selling their own line of peptides and "suppliments" as well, and all their little ads are made poorly with AI...