Corporate mom buys business to restore family dinner time
St. Petersburg, Fl - Fran Mikuta searched for a variety of ways to simplify the dinner preparation process since returning to the workforce following her first maternity leave.
Macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper once seemed like the only solution for the information technology manager who was juggling a fulltime career and raising two young sons.
These days, Mikuta has a better alternative, and she hopes she can turn thousands of households in St. Petersburg onto it.
This month, Mikuta opened a meal preparation business that will help families put healthier and tastier food on the dinner table in a fraction of the time they used to spending on cooking.
Mikuta is the first entrepreneur to purchase a Let's Eat! franchise store. Founded by two busy Tampa moms, Let's Eat! enables customers to assemble eight to 12 meals in less than two hours by taking care of the preparation and clean up work.
Let's Eat! - which Marni Poe and Melissa Slack opened in 2004 in South Tampa - appears to be on the forefront of a home meal replacement trend. Time-pressed and cooking-shy consumers have embraced the concept with such fervor that a second corporate-owned store recently opened in Westchase and two franchise stores are slated for Clearwater and Orlando by the end of the year. They plan to have 294 franchised locations within five years.
Mikuta's Let's Eat! shop is like a combination of an immaculately designed commercial kitchen and a TV cooking show set that includes 14 food preparation stations with all the ingredients, utensils and accessories customers need to assemble their meals from the Let's Eat! menu. Each dish serves four to six people at $2.50 to $3 per serving.
For Mikuta, who left corporate America in February to spend more time with her sons, Connor, 4, and Kevin, 2, the family-oriented business venture is an ideal one.
"I really wanted to do something meaningful for other people, and I didn't feel like my current job was doing that,"she said. "Bringing other people back around the dinner table, I thought, would be a good contribution."
Recent studies support Mikuta's notion.
Fewer than one-third of all children sit down to eat dinner with both parents on any given night, and the demise of family dining is blamed for the rise in obesity, drug abuse, behavioral problems, promiscuity, eating disorders and poor school performance.
A recent study at the Harvard Medical School concluded that the odds of being overweight were 15 percent lower among those who ate dinner with their family on "most days."
Let's Eat! provides well-balanced meals that customers can feel good about serving to their families.
"As far as knowing what goes into my food, it's the same ingredients I would put into my meals if I were making it in my own kitchen," Mikuta said. "I know there are no preservatives in it."
"My favorite meal is the pasta primavera," she said. "It's very nutritional, lots of vegetables."
As a mother of two active toddlers, Mikuta appreciates the valuable time and energy Let's Eat! services can save her.
But the concept is equally appealing to other demographics as well.
"This targets a lot of busy moms, but also busy people in general," she said. "Single people don't like to go to all the trouble to create a meal. Maybe this would be perfect for men who want to give this as a gift to their wives. Then the husband has basically cooked dinner for a month for his wife. It's also a great shower gift for new parents and newlyweds."
Mikuta's store is located at 4946 4th Street North, St. Petersburg.
###
Media Contact
Krista Zilizi
Quantified Marketing Group
(706) 627-3204
kzilizi@quantifiedmarketing.com
|
