We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Cox recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I’ve always loved cooking and have dreamed my entire adult life of having my own café, or soup and sandwich shop. But more than that, I always had a desire to work for myself one day. But realistically, I never saw how that could become a reality. Which makes my journey to where I am today, all the more remarkable. Back in 2018 I took notice of how much we were spending each week eating out during the week, particularly during lunch. We were spending too much money, and I was consuming too many unhealthy calories. So that’s when I decided that I was going to start meal prepping. In passing one day, I mentioned this to my mom, and she asked if she could pay me to meal prep for her each week too.
She’s single, and although she likes to cook, anytime she made a meal for herself she would have to eat it for three or four days because it’s not easy to cook for just one person.
So, of course, I said yes. That very week, she called and said, “Hey, I was telling Reg, her best friend, that you were going to start meal prepping for me and she asked if you would do it for her to and for her mom? Her mom is 85 years old & she really doesn’t want her using the stove”.
I said, why not I’m already cooking for you and my family what’s a couple more people.
Well, within three weeks this little meal prep side hustle, turned into a business because those people told some people at church, at the ballfield, at work… and before I knew it, I was meal prepping for 10 to 12 people on any given week.
I did this for two years. Every Sunday I was in my kitchen meal prepping. I would laugh and say that my refrigerator looked like I was playing a game of Tetris, with all of the meal prep containers each week. People would come to my house and pick up their food or I would meet them nearby. I had a private Facebook group called Tupper n Totes, where I’d post the meals each week and people would message me their order. They would get a cute little insulated bag with the order, and of course, the meals would be in Tupperware!
All that was going fine and good until March of 2020, when out of the blue we were in a worldwide pandemic. We weren’t really sure what this Covid19 virus was, and I didn’t feel comfortable sending food out of my home that could potentially make someone sick. Especially since I was cooking for so many elderly people. And honestly by that point, I was getting burn out on spending every Sunday cooking for 12 hours. My family was burnt out and so was I. So, I decided to stop the whole meal prep side hustle altogether.
In April 2020 out of the blue, my sister, who is a property manager in town, calls me and says hey, I want to show you this space that I have. I talked to my boss, and she said that she would be fine if you turned it into a commercial kitchen.
Hear me when I say, I had never talked to my sister about opening up a commercial kitchen. She, of course, knew that it was my dream to work for myself, and to maybe one day open a restaurant. But we probably hadn’t talked about that in years! So, this conversation was completely out of left field.
But I work just a few minutes away from this property, so I met her over there on my lunch hour one day.

To be honest, I was underwhelmed. It was an odd space, in an odd location. It was a part of a bigger building that had been cut into smaller offices, and I honestly couldn’t even see any type of vision. When we walked through the space, I was thinking, even if I was remotely interested, this looks like a lot of work, and a lot of money to turn this into anything- let alone a commercial kitchen!

So honestly, the day that we walked through the property, I thought it was really sweet of her to offer, but I really couldn’t see it turning into anything. So, I just really put it on the back burner. I can’t even remember if I mentioned looking at the property to my husband or not, because I just knew it wasn’t a reality.
That very same week, I was in my office, and my boss who I also meal prepped for during those two years, walked into my office eating a meal that she picked up from somewhere else, and said how much she missed my meal prepping for her and her family. She also offhandedly said, “Hey, my trainer said the other day if you ever decide to meal prep again. She will give you all of her clients”.
Again, I thought that was such an odd statement to make out of the blue. Here’s my boss telling me ‘Hey if you ever start another business…. “ What? But if I’m honest, there was a spark of excitement, because I had just looked at a potential space. But again, this was just something else I tucked in the back of my mind.
Well, I kid you not that very same week someone else would say something, seemingly out of the blue. A lady in my Bible study sent me a random text message, saying, “this sounds completely random but if you ever decide to start a meal prep company, I will give you $2000 as an investment. If you make money, you can pay me back, no interest. If you don’t make money, it’s simply an investment and it will never be mentioned again. Just something to consider”.
As a faith person, I knew that these were not simply coincidences. I knew that these were nudges from God! So, I remember praying okay, Lord, if this is from You, then the last hurdle or proof that I would need, would be for my husband to get on board. And I just did not see that as something that would happen.
I had a great job, that I enjoyed. Was it my passion? No. But I was paid well, and enjoyed many perks of joining a startup, family owned company when they were still working in their garage. And I was the breadwinner. I had a safe and secure job, and I just knew that there was no way that he would be willing to take a risk on me starting a business without really knowing what I was doing!
But with all of these weird nudges, I told my husband that we needed to go and look at this building. So, one evening we met my sister, and I walked him through the offices and shared with him the vision that had started to form of what this space could be. My husband is the silent type that doesn’t say a whole lot, so I knew that he would need time to process this, and honestly, my expectations were very low. Well, the next thing I know, he walked out to his truck, and he came back with a sledgehammer- that I didn’t even know that he had! And that very night he started taking down walls! And from that point on, we were building a commercial kitchen, and he was fully on board.
It took us two years to build this kitchen. We did every single thing by ourselves, and really bootstrapped the whole thing. It was so organic, and we have fumbled our way through for the last 3 1/2 years, to where we are today.

Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Balance Food Co was an idea born from my love of food and the need for well-balanced meals that were convenient for my friends and family.

For several years, I would meal prep for myself and for my family on the weekends. Then I started meal prepping for my mom. Then I quickly started meal prepping for some of her friends, and for their elderly parents, then for more family, friends, and co-workers. Before long, I was making between 80-100 individual and family-sized meals and homemade healthy snacks every single weekend- and I loved everything about it.
The planning, shopping, prepping, preparing, and even the clean-up was all so therapeutic for me! Then when Covid hit, I decided it was time to take a huge leap of faith. It was time to move my business from my home kitchen, into a commercial kitchen. So, in April of 2021, my husband and I started building out the kitchen and the concept for the future Balance Food Co.

When thinking about the concept behind our meal prep business, I kept coming back to one main point and that is, that I don’t do diets.
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For me, life truly is all about balance. I enjoy food and try to live by the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time, I eat pretty clean- which includes lean proteins, healthy fats, and lots of greens. And 20% of the time, I will moderately indulge in the rich, comfort foods and the sweets and treats that I love!

It’s not uncommon at our house for there to be beautiful wild-caught salmon and roasted vegetables in the oven… and a pan homemade buckeye brownies cooling on the counter! So basically, that’s what you’ll find on our menu, 80% healthy and 20% indulgence!
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Each week you’ll find meals that are delicious, well balanced, and appropriately portioned. Our mission is to satisfy the needs of those who want the taste of healthy, homemade food- without all of the work!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started my business, all of the orders were going to be online, preorders! I wasn’t going to have a grab n go cooler. I thought I’d make 4-5 extra meals each week for a few stragglers that might wander in my store. VERY quickly I realized that most people aren’t planners, and if I wanted this to work I needed a cooler for them to shop out of! Now, 99% of my business is from my grab n go coolers. I have a large one in my flagship store, and I have 3 in other locations around town.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We had a very small amount in savings and I was terrified of putting that money into a business, that wasn’t guaranteeing a return on our investment! Fortunately for us, we were building this after the pandemic and were able to buy used restaurant equipment for pennies on the dollar on sites like Facebook Marketplace. It was a risk buying such expensive things that were used with no warranty, but it’s what we had to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.balancedfoodco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balancefoodco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/balancefoodco

Image Credits
Lindsey Reece Nikki Fleming