OLATHE, Kan. - Kansas City is getting in on the growing popularity of home meal kits. A company out of Olathe, Kansas is mixing up the way ingredients make it home to your kitchen.
"It came from a personal experience, me shopping at a grocery store thinking, there's got to be an easier way to do this, really before the meal kit market was even developed," said Jeff Glasco, theHappy Food Co.CEO.
Meal kits are not only eliminating the headache of meal planning -- they're making cooking easier too.
"Anybody can cook one of our meals," Glasco said.
Companies like Happy Food Co. are making it easier for people to eat local food right from home.
"We wanted to have an on demand, easy, quick, grab and go experience and that's really how our business model differs from the meal kits by mail companies," Glasco said.
Instead of paying for a subscription to have scheduled meals delivered by mail, you can grab a Happy Food Co. kit right off the grocery store shelves.
"Bison cheeseburger quesadilla is by far the most popular meal," Glasco said.
When you open the box, you’ll find everything you need.
"Instead of having to chop up all of these ingredients, we give them to you fully prepped, ready to go, so that does make the cook time extremely fast," said Glasco.
And you won't need to worry about eating the same thing twice. Right now, the Happy Food Co. offers more than 20 different recipes.
"Our business is really built on a simple stat that 80% of Americans, by 4 p.m. each day don't know what they're having for dinner at night," Glasco said.
Every day, hundreds of fresh meals are being boxed up. What is not used goes to fight hunger in the community.
"Forty percent of food in America is wasted. Our operation, we bring in food supply, we turn it very quickly, anything we have left over or comes back from a store, we partner with local kitchens to supply that," Glasco said.
The Kansas City Community Kitchen is one organization that benefits from Happy Food Co.’s leftovers.
"It's awesome, we give so much food to the local food kitchens and were just all about not wanting anything to go to waste," Amanda Hughey, a Happy Food Co. employee, said.
No matter which meal you grab to take home, it should only take about 20 – 25 minutes to prepare. Price Chopper and Hen House are just two grocery stores throughout the metro area where you can find the ready-to-cook boxes.
