Hot, healthy meals delivered right to your Western Pennsylvania door
It's 6 p.m. You're leaving work late, the fridge is empty and so is your stomach. All you can think is: What's for dinner?
Fast food is, well, fast — but it doesn't always meet the need the way it used to, as many people become more concerned with eating lighter and healthier.
Recent years have seen the proliferation of home meal delivery services like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. While those eliminate the need for menu planning and grocery shopping, they still require some time for actual cooking.
Now Western Pennsylvanians have the following options for meals that arrive at the door fully cooked, plated and ready to heat and eat. And, their creators say, they're affordable too.
The Ripped Kitchen
An accountant, a personal trainer and a caterer got together and — no, it wasn't the start of a joke, it was the start of The Ripped Kitchen, a service that started delivering ready-made healthy meals in Westmoreland County about a month ago.
Accountant Brad Messner of New Stanton says he was talking with his personal trainer, Stuart Urch of Ligonier, about his own desire to eat better, and the two decided there was an untapped market of local people looking for the same thing. Urch brought his friend Staci Kuhns, a Latrobe-based caterer, on board.
“People complain about not having easy, healthy food options,” Urch says. “We think we're providing that with fast food prices and the convenience of bringing it to your door.”
Meals, built around animal proteins, come ready to heat and eat.
“We're competing with the national services that send you ingredients unprepared,” Messner says. “If you can't cook, why is that an option?”
“We like to say, ‘If you're not good at cooking, we are,'” Urch adds.
Messner says they use organic ingredients, locally sourced when possible. Kuhns grows many of the featured vegetables in her garden.
Delivery is available within a 30-mile radius of Greensburg, Messner says. It's free for an order of more than six meals; for smaller orders, the fee is $25. Customers are assigned one of two delivery days each week and are given a time range during which the driver will arrive.
Most meals are $10. Among current options at TheRippedKitchen.com are Cajun Shrimp Stir Fry with Brown Rice, Broccoli, Green Peppers and Onions; Italian Beef with Homemade Red Sauce, Broccoli and Carrots; and Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers with Brown Rice and Black Beans.
One thing the partners have found surprising, Urch says, is the wide range of demographics that their clients cover.
They started with many of Urch's other personal training clients who were, Messner says, “looking to lose weight, build muscle or just have something good to eat. But we're starting to see that the possibilities are so much bigger than we originally thought.”
That includes college students and people interested in making sure their elderly parents are eating well.
“We're in an area where affordability is important,” Messner says. “We want to be known for giving people good food at a good value.”
Sprinly
A silent meditation retreat with monks in Thailand helped inspire Ray Lui and Mary McCann to start Sprinly, their Cleveland-area business delivering plant-based, organic meals throughout Ohio, southern Lower Michigan and now, western and central Pennsylvania.
The couple met while working for a Silicon Valley consulting firm in California.
“Working 100 hours a week and eating takeout meals in the office was not the healthiest thing,” Lui says. Nor was anything else associated with that lifestyle.
Eventually they decided to put their belongings in storage and travel the world.
“We saw that, in most countries, people eat a much more plant-based diet,” Lui says. “We weren't vegans or vegetarians prior to starting out with this, but we were very much interested in living healthier.”
Returning to Lui's native Cleveland last year, they started on their business plan, he says, “to help people eat healthier and not have to cook every single night. If you want more time in your week, with no shopping, no cooking and no cleanup, we can save you 10 to 15 hours a week.”
In a year, the business has expanded into a commercial kitchen with a staff of 18.
The website, sprinly.com , lists delivery plans of 6, 9, 12 and 20 meals per week, although Lui cautions that only the six meals for $109 and 12 meals for $199 are currently available in Pennsylvania. Meals come ready to heat and eat in insulated boxes with ice packs via overnight delivery by UPS or FedEx.
Lui says customers tell him that they often can make 1.5 to 2 meals from a serving.
Choices include hearty entrees like Almond Ginger Quinoa Bowl with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Sliced Apples or Fajita Bowl with Lentil Walnut Crumble and lighter fare like Sweet Pea Soup with Roasted Garbanzo Salad and Grapefruit Citrus Tofu & Tempeh with Mung Bean Peanut Noodles.
Customers can tailor the service to their schedules by setting up ongoing delivery, ordering week by week, or skipping weeks as needed.
While the website says the service is “perfect for those busy individuals who don't have time to cook every night, vegans working to maintain their diet, or anyone trying to jumpstart their healthier lifestyle with plant-based meals,” Lui says, “Our clients are often omnivores just looking to eat more vegetables.”
The business name reflects its mission, Lui says.
“We were kicking around words that represent what you feel when you eat something really healthy — you're ready to take on the world, you feel springy, you feel ‘sprinly,'” he says, “though you won't find it in the dictionary ... yet.”
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-836-5750, smcmarlin@tribweb.com or via Twitter @shirley_trib.
