We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kimberly St. Clair. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kimberly below.
Hi Kimberly, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
To be honest, the reason I started this company, is a reason I wish didn’t exist. I watched my dad struggle with eating healthy and his weight my entire life. He tried so many different fad diets and quick fixes, but nothing seemed to stick. He was a huge foodie and loved to watch shows like “Diners, Drive-In’s & Dives,” so all of the “healthy” food he was forcing himself to eat never tasted great to him and always seemed like a punishment. Unfortunately at the young age of 62, he was diagnosed with Stage 3 Esophageal Cancer. A disease strongly attributed to a lifetime of unhealthy eating. A year and a half later he was gone.
Research shows that over 40% of cancers are related to an unhealthy lifestyle. More often than not, I find myself thinking “If I knew what I know now about food…. maybe…. just maybe… he might still be here.” Be here to see my brother become a dad. Be here to walk me down the aisle. Be here to make me laugh when no one else can. Be here to dance every time a Pitbull song comes on. Just BE HERE.
At the time I had barely started to get my feet wet in the world of food. But after he passed and I had time to process it, I turned my grief into what is now PREPable Meals. We are completely focused on improving gut health and lowering internal inflammation. Everything from our kitchen is gluten-free, dairy-free, grain-free, refined sugar-free, legume-free, soy-free, and preservative-free…. Why? Because your health starts in your gut and HEALTH IS WEALTH. My dad was my new motivation. I began creating menus for foodies. If I thought my dad would like a recipe, it went on the menu (I still use this thought process now, over 4 years into the business). So my new goal was to help prevent as many people and families as possible from experiencing what we went through.
On top of that, my Mom (lovingly known as “Momster”) is now my partner. PREPable wouldn’t run without her. She is able to rein in my creative tornado brain and keep me on track with the paperwork and finances required to run this business.
We have a 6 rotating menus that include things like Birria Ramen, “Cheesy” Chicken Verde Enchiladas, Carne Asada Meatballs, Chicken Pad Thai, Loaded Teriyaki Steak Fries, and many more meals you would never think could be healthy.
Life is too short for boring food!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
PREPable Meals is a meal prep company focused on improving your gut health and lowering your internal inflammation. We offer a 6-week rotating menu. So you never see the same meal on our menu for 6 weeks, then your favorites will rotate back around! We are very well known for our sauces, flavors from around the world, and delicious snacks!
We are a Whole30-approved and Paleo-friendly. This means, our food is ALWAYS gluten-free, dairy-free, grain-free, preservative-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free, and legume free!
One thing that sets us apart is that we do not require a subscription. All we require is a $60 minimum order and we will deliver straight to your doorstep. We are currently shipping statewide to California, Arizona & Nevada!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
At the beginning of 2024 we expanded our shipping from just 3 counties in southern california to three states. I had been working on this expansion for about 6 months with a shipping company and they assured me that as long as our meals were sealed tight and stayed cold for up to 48hrs in our shipping boxes everything would be fine. So we announced the expansion to our clients and online audience! The day came for the boxes to get packed up and shipped out and our entire team worked so hard to make sure everything was perfect. I delivered the boxes to the warehouse and cried on the way home because I was so proud of us and so excited for what this meant for our future.
The next day a friend of mine texted me saying her box arrived! I called her while she was opening it and then she said those dreaded words “They’re cracked, Half of the meal prep containers are shattered” I was at my favorite coffee shop, and immediately jumped in my car and sped home. I didn’t know what to do because now hundreds of people (many of whom were new clients) were about to open their PREPable Boxes to find shattered containers and food everywhere. After the initial panic wore off, I proceeded to text every single person who ordered from us to profusely apologize and give them a heads up about what they might experience with the box delivery. I asked them to let me know how many meals were cracked and I would immediately refund them for those meals.
Then, almost every single client made me cry. But not for the reason you might think. Instead of being angry or dissappointed, they proceeded to text me words of encouragement. They told me how much they loved our meals, and to keep going because this was just a small business hiccup. They assured me they weren’t going anywhere and would still be ordering next week. So insteaf of a refund, almost all of them asked for a credit instead. When I say I cried… I was bawling. I couldn’t believe the kindness of people.
After a long and heated call with our shipping company, they took absolutely no responsibility (even though we had fragile and perishable stickers on it). The manager who I spoke to said that even if we have fragile stickers the boxes need to be drop tested from 5 feet in the air. Needless to say I was seeing red. This had cost us close to $10,000, and we would be getting none of it back.
So I did the only thing I could do… pivoted. By the next week, we had new compostable containers that wouldn’t crack and figured out a way to keep them sealed in transit.
I would love to say that was the end of our shipping woes, but even now, 8 months later, we are in the process of changing the packaiging again to make our clients unboxing experience even more elevated!
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Some of our craziest stories have come from staffing nightmares, but luckily that is all behind us now! We have an incredible team and I wouldn’t be able to do this without them.
My one piece of advice for fostering a respectful and respectable environment is to listen. Listen to any ideas or concerns with an open mind. Since I’m not always the one in the kitchen when things come up, it only makes sense to listen to my team about how to make our process more efficient. Sometimes I “okay” a change, and sometimes I don’t. But they know they can count on me at least considering it and not just brushing them off.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.prepablemeals.com
- Instagram: prepablemeals
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prepable.meals.7/
- Other: tik tok – @prepablemeals
Image Credits
Mary St. Clair
Kimberly St. Clair