Meal Prep & Delivery Service

Meal prep services prepare fresh, healthy meals and deliver them to clients weekly, eliminating cooking and meal planning burden.

You design menus, shop for ingredients, prepare meals in commercial kitchen, portion and package, and deliver or offer pickup.

You can focus on specific diets (keto, paleo, vegan, macro-balanced), goals (weight loss, muscle gain, general health), or populations (busy professionals, new parents, seniors, athletes).

Success requires cooking skills and food safety knowledge, menu planning and recipe development, kitchen efficiency and systems, and logistics managing preparation and delivery.

Pricing typically ranges from $8-15 per meal depending on ingredients and portion sizes, with minimum weekly orders (5-10 meals), potentially tiered plans by calorie levels or diet types.

Startup costs include commercial kitchen access (rental, commissary, or building to code, $500-3,000+ monthly), food handler permits and business licensing, initial ingredient inventory, packaging and labels, delivery vehicles and logistics, liability insurance, website and ordering system, and marketing totaling $10,000-40,000.

Building client base involves local marketing to target demographics, social media showing meals and prep process, sampling and popup events, partnerships with gyms or nutrition coaches, corporate lunch programs, targeting new parents or specific communities, referral incentives, and potentially paid local ads.

Revenue comes from weekly meal subscriptions, potentially add-ons (snacks, beverages, supplements), corporate or office lunch programs, or catering for events.

Operating costs include ingredient costs (typically 25-35% of revenue), commercial kitchen rental, packaging and labels, fuel and delivery, labor for prep and delivery, marketing, and insurance.

Challenges include thin margins with food costs and labor, food safety and liability critical, managing inventory and waste, delivery logistics in limited geography, and competitive local meal prep market.

Success requires delicious, consistent meals (taste matters most), efficient prep systems minimizing labor per meal, reliable delivery and communication, focusing on specific dietary niche or population, potentially offering customization within structure, and excellent food safety practices.

Meal prep serves time-starved people valuing health and convenience.