We recently connected with Jessica Todd and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

I’m not sure if these challenges have always been the same challenge or are just major challenges right now, so I will talk about what I know….right now. The biggest challenge to owning a meal-prep company and showing profit is multi-faceted. First, Help. Finding qualified, dependable help is a challenge. As a small business, I cannot provide a benefit package or even full time work for everyone which results in a revolving door of staff members, plus I am finding more and more that people just don’t want to work! Second, food and supply costs continue to increase post COVID. I have incresed my prices to help but the cost of supplies continues to increase which directly impact profit margins. Third, it takes a lot of money to grow the business through website, advertisement and SEO. Money that a small business does not have. I constantly feel like I am in a race that I cannot win.

Jessica , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In 2014, my son Jaxon was born. Like any parent, we want the best for our children. For me, a quality preschool was important. After the purchase of our first home in 2016, I knew I needed to find a way to earn extra income in order to afford the preschool I wanted Jaxon to go to. My husband was just getting started in his career as an RN so we were both doing what we could. One evening, a couple of friends and I were sitting on the back deck discussing the challenges of everyday life the topic of dinners and healthy eating surfaced. I have always meal-prepped; I started doing it in grad school and loved trying new recipes weekly. I asked my girlfriends if they would be interested in letting me cook for them and they said yes. Fast forward to 2018 and I was cooking for 20-25 people weekly (alone!) In 2019, Atlanta based Perfectly Portioned Nutrition was born.

During that same year, I earned my promotion as Clinical Assistant Professor at Georgia State but knew that without a Ph.D. my ability to climb that ladder was gone so I decided to put my efforts into growing my own business. I hired a business coach who helped through the paperwork and started cooking meals in a shared commercial kitchen a few months later. Now, four years later, we still cook from the shared space but have a semi-private space to work from.

Since opening, I have made it a point to try a handful of my competetors. I can clearly say with confidence that what sets us apart from them is quaility. Our food is tasty, fresh, full of flavor and healthy. I cannot say that for the items I have tried. When I tell people what I do, I sometimes hear, “that didn’t work for me, the meals get boring”. I am hear to say, that I have NEVER had a client tell me that they get bored with our food. If anything, they tell me we should repeat items more often.

Another thing that sets us apart is customer service. Our food and our clientele fell like family. I hope to always keep it that way.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This one is just an example of one of the many! Last week, my Chef was on vacation which meant I had to cover her load plus mine. I had ligned up 2 working interviews that day along with a temp dishwasher plus 3 of my assistants to help with Friday production. I arrived at 6 am as usual. The two stages no-showed. The dishwasher dropped the shift and 1 of my assistants were sick. There I was alone with 2 assistants who have minimal culinary skills. But, you survive. You dig deep, take one task at a time and muddle through.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I started the business with nothing. I had been providing meal prep services off-record to family and friends so I knew there was a market. My lease was for 40 hours a month at a shared kitchen space so I knew I could afford rent based off of current clientele. I opened a business credit card that had 10k credit line and paid for a website to be built. As I sold meals, I bought more equipment and so the story continues. During CoVid there was a time that I felt like we would not survive another year. I was fortunate to obtain an EIDL loan that has given me some cushion and the capital to finally have an advertising budget. I wish I could say the rest is history but the lessons are still being learned and the growth remains low and slow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.perfectlyportionednutrition.com
• Instagram: perfectlyportionednutrition
• Facebook: perfectlyportionednutrition