Real Eats simplifies meal preparation

With so many choices for meal and delivery services, it can be hard to stand out in a crowded field. But a new Geneva company is trying to do just that with Real Eats.

The 13-month-old company is currently shipping 4,000 ready-to-heat-and-eat meals a week from its incubator kitchen in the Geneva Enterprise Development Center. Executive Chef Marco Ballatori said the company expects to be shipping closer to 120,000 meals a week in the next year.

Real Eats’ idea is a catchy one, fueled almost entirely by social media advertising.

“We are bringing a product directly to the consumer,” said Ballatori. “We will deliver to you a full-prepared meal that is nutritious and tasty.”

Unlike meal kits, where you get a box of ingredients and a recipe, or takeout, where you get a rapidly cooling dinner of sometimes questionable nutritional value, Real Eats comes chilled but fully cooked inside vacuum-packed plastic bags. Meals are mostly organic and contain fewer than 600 calories.

When the meals arrive, the consumer places the vacuum-packed bags in the refrigerator and recycles the carton, thermal lining and cold packs. When she’s ready to eat, she puts on a pot of boiling water and drops the bags into boiling water for up to six minutes.

“We give consumers back 60 minutes a day,” said Dan Wise, founder and CEO of Real Eats, describing the company to other startups at a conference in Elbridge, Onondaga County, in September.

Wise followed his family to Montreal in 2007 after living in the New York City area for 12 years. While the idea for the company’s vacuum sealing was conceived in Montreal, he knew he needed a denser population to make the idea work, so he started looking for Startup NY sites, which provide state incentives to companies that locate there. Cornell University was one of the few places that called back, and the staff recommended he talk with the then-city manager of Geneva.

A package of incentives from Geneva and New York State pointed to the city’s enterprise center with its ready-made kitchen.

“Geneva is not the most efficient to ship from, but the amazing support from the city, the county and the state have really helped us,” Wise said. And he couldn’t have dreamed up a better foodshed to be in the middle of than the Finger Lakes region, he said.

Ballatori described a typical customer as someone who is pressed for time, yet wants to eat more healthfully. He cited the UPS driver who started eating Real Eats meals after delivering some of them from the Geneva kitchen. After working a 12-hour day, that driver typically got fast food on the way home. Now after a day of work, he starts a pot of water boiling before jumping in the shower and when he’s dressed, he has a meal like salmon with farro salad in 6 minutes. And he’s lost weight because he’s eating healthier, Ballatori said.

“It’s a really healthy alternative for someone like that,” Ballatori said. And a time-saver for people who appreciate good food and don’t want processed foods.  “We’re really trying to change the way people are eating and give them options.”

Wise said the company hits on the three hottest food trends of the moment: health and wellness, hyper-convenience, and fresh, authentic food.

Currently, Real Eats offers a menu of 18 lunch or dinner options a week, with the menu changing each week. A recent menu included slow-roasted turkey with cherry sauce, paired with wild rice, shallots and garlic. Vegetarian options are included on the menu, but it would be hard to pull together a week’s worth of vegetarian meals without repeating.

“We do not replace the restaurant experience,” Ballatori said, and he should know, as he worked in several high-end restaurants in Rochester and Geneva before coming to work at Real Eats. Pricing averages $12.50 to $14 a meal, making it comparable or less expensive than takeout. If breakfast meals are included in the order, Ballatori said, the average cost would be closer to $9.

Real Eats operates with a staff of about 20. A major shipment goes out each Monday to Albany, a hub for the Northeast. The food arrives in as little as two days, though its vacuum packaging gives the consumer a full week to use it.

Taking the air out, Ballatori said, removes the oxygen that causes the food to start decomposing. The kitchen in Geneva includes a super-cooling process that can take something from boiling to under 40 degrees in less than 45 minutes, which also helps in preserving freshness. Each meal includes two to four packets, such as a meat with sauce, a grain side dish, and perhaps a cold salad that doesn’t have to be reheated. The plastic pouches are the same rigorously tested plastic that’s used in sous-vide cooking, Ballatori said.

Scaling up will change the company, from the number of employees, to the square footage used in the former industrial building it inhabits, to its relationships with suppliers, to its menus.

“As we grow, we need more facilities,” Ballatori said. Wise said the company hopes to have as many as 100 employees next year if expansion goes as planned. He is talking with a range of private investors.

Real Eats is using just a fraction of the building it’s in now and basically plans to add another packaging line and more refrigeration in adjacent space.

“We’re now talking to farms about how much land they’ll use to grow for us,” Ballatori said. “It’s important to use the best ingredients possible.”

While attending the conference in September, Ballatori met the purveyor of Leep Foods’ maitake mushrooms.  Real Eats has been using and shipping Leep Foods’ mushrooms to 22 states inside Real Eats meals. He expects the need for other local ingredients to grow exponentially as Real Eats ramps up.

“A year from now, we forecast we’ll be using 100,000 pounds of potatoes,” Ballatori said.

While one menu is offered each week to consumers, as the customer base increases, satellite menus may be added to include halal, vegan, gluten-free, low-sodium and kosher diets, the chef said. Because the meals are fully cooked, customers can eat them safely without reheating. And, if there’s no ability to rewarm the pouches with boiling water, they can be taken out of the pouches and reheated in a microwave in a pinch.

Ballatori said Real Eats envisions working with nursing homes and airlines to provide convenient, healthful meals on a large scale that don’t require a chef on site.

Currently, the staff creates and packages the meals even before customers place an order, which are typically for six meals a week. Once the shipment for orders leaves on Monday, the staff enjoys a lunch from the leftovers. And what’s left after that goes to the food pantry immediately next door to the kitchen.

The company may be catching a ride on the wave of interest in “clean” or unprocessed eating.

“People wanted this answer to their needs,” Ballatori said. “Here we ride in on our unprocessed horse, so to speak, and answer their need.”

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