We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Dreyer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Stephanie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with 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.

I started an online community over 10 years ago via a blog. My goal was to share my vegan lifestyle and connect with others in the plant-based community. As the only vegan in my family of 5, I gained expertise in feeding my family with one meal, despite our dietary differences. One of my biggest strategies for doing this was through my meal planning system and techniques.

I started to get asked to teach classes and share my tips. I created a monthly Sunday meal prep class in my home kitchen and was overwhelmed with the response I received. My clients wanted me to host the classes weekly. I realized I needed a way to scale the classes on a larger level. Those classes led me to create the system that my meal prep membership, Batch Cooking Club, is founded upon, and then the digital product I now offer weekly. My members’ feedback and experience has helped me shape the current iteration of the subscription.

I did all of the above as a passion, not as a business. It wasn’t even a side gig or hustle. I was just doing my best to serve and help people, while doing what I love — make delicious plant-based food for my friends and family.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a marketing executive with over 20 years of management experience, working with a range of clients, including agencies, large corporate brands, personal brands and startups. After going vegan overnight 13 years ago with 3 small children, I found myself dreading the daily question, “What’s for dinner” as I struggled to get healthy, homemade meals on the table while I juggled life as a busy, working mom.

After years of spending hours in the kitchen to feed myself and my non vegan family, I created a process that streamlined my daily meal prep and reduced my overall time in the kitchen each week. At the beginning of this period, I started an online platform to share my experience. Over time, that platform built and led to other opportunities, including publishing 2 non fiction picture books about veganism for kids.

I have been featured in VegNews and Chickpea Magazine, and have contributed to The Los Angeles Times, Parade, Men’s Journal, as well as many other publications for my expertise in plant-based meal planning.

My mission with Batch Cooking Club is to help families sit down to the dining table more often with healthy, homemade meals so that they can connect with what really matters most – each other. I believe dinner should be joyful, not stressful, and I want to make it as easy as possible for families to experience that joy.

My 5-step proven system teaches parents how to create a meal planning and prep routine that works for their schedule (instead of make more work). I take the thinking out of meal planning by providing weekly meal plans and recipes without time consuming prep.

As the only vegan in my family, the meals aren’t just for vegan and vegetarian families, but also families who might have a mix of vegans and omnivores like me. I start with a plant-based meal but also offer suggestions for the non plant eaters so that everyone can eat the same meal. My goal is to simplify dinner and eliminate the need to make multiple meals a night to please everyone.

I’m most proud of our unique approach to batch cooking. We don’t just give you a menu of dinners for the week and a grocery list. We help you figure out where to best plug those into your weekly meal plan based on your schedule and we give you a weekly meal prep system that transforms your daily dinner prep. Our done-for-you prep plans take you step by step with what to do to prepare 4-6 meal components for the week in less than 2 hours so you can have dinner on the table during the week in 30 minutes or less.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I started an online community over 10 years ago via a blog. My goal was to share my vegan lifestyle and connect with others in the plant-based community. I was just sharing what I was doing, what worked and what didn’t. My goal was to connect with other vegans as I didn’t know anyone else in my immediate friends and family circle who was also living this lifestyle.

I started contributing to other blogs and online media outlets, and started to grow my following. That led to more opportunities, including collaborations with vegan brands and other well known bloggers in the community.

My biggest advise to those building a social media presence is to be authentic (show up as yourself) and be consistent. Keep to a schedule and post regularly on your channels. Engage daily with your followers and those you want to collaborate with.

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

Last July, I made the decision to pause my business. I was overwhelmed with the juggle of managing it at the same time as my full time job and family. I started my business to have more financial and personal freedom in my life, but found I was chained to my computer. At the same time, I was realizing I wasn’t seeing the return for my time investment, and the joy and passion I had when I initially started the business was dulling.

So I took 6 months to pause, re-evaluate and re-focus. I relaunched in January with a new platform and a streamlined process that has allowed me to put more energy and passion into the business than ever before.

I had a lot of fears and hesitation about pausing the business, but it was the most important thing I could do. It enabled me to deliver a stronger product to my customers and reenergize myself towards my mission.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.batchcookingclub.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniemdreyer/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrToDMzePOLpksnhDc7hTig

Image Credits
Cheryl Ogden