24 Dinners at a Time
Last year, we wrote about three fix-and-freeze companies that allow customers to assemble prepped food into healthy dinners.The concept has exploded in the past year. Entrepreneurs across the US have started their own dinner assembly stores, and the field’s leader, Dream Dinners, has expanded from 49 locations in April 2005 to 163 today, thanks to an active franchise program. (Dream Dinners’ franchise fee is USD 35,000 plus monthly royalties, and total start-up costs are between USD 175,000 and 250,000.)
Though they vary in style, all of the dinner assembly companies offer essentially the same service: customers schedule a session online, picking meals from a monthly menu. The store, a large commercial-grade kitchen, organizes freshly chopped and prepared ingredients in practical stations. Customers move around the store, assembling a meal at each station by scooping ingredients into freezer bags or disposable baking pans. Meals are easily customized to accommodate personal tastes or diets – the customer just adds more or less fresh garlic or ginger, or substitutes pork for beef. Finally, the packaged meals are clearly labeled with cooking instructions.
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