With everything that has been going on, it’s quite easy to admit that these times have been stressful for all, just in different formats. Anything that can be done to ease the anxiety of having to provide for families, stay safely in your home and help continue to flatten the curve is immensely vital—especially when it comes to food, and Performance Meal Prep is here to help ease some of your troubles and concerns in that regard.
Originally aimed to target athletes, PMP over the years has grown and expanded immensely to service a wide variety of consumers in Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Delaware County, Southern New Jersey and Delaware. Although their services have had to make some changes amidst COVID-19 (they are now offering contact-less pickup and delivery within a 40-mile radius only), it has not slowed down their mission to continue to produce quality food by sourcing from local and fresh ingredients.
“Basically, we just try to offer people clean food delivered and fully cooked in weekly installments,” says Jesse Batt, founder of Performance Meal Prep. “Everything we do is all fresh and never frozen, we cook everything from scratch—all sauces and whatnot we make in-house. We take all of the work out of everything. Avoiding crowds, I think that’s very relevant right now, so our service makes it easy for people to do just that. They don’t have to go to the grocery store, they don’t have to prep their food, they don’t have to cook it—it’s all there for them.”
How it works is quite simple, making the process ideal. To order, head to Performance Meal Prep’s official site, check out the menu (which changes bi-weekly and provides all ingredients being used), list any specific allergies or needs you might have and have your order in by 5 p.m. Friday to receive or pick-up your meal during the designated times on Sunday or Monday. There are no subscriptions, and ordering is done on a weekly basis.
To help paint an edible picture, a few meals being offered at this time include apple pecan overnight oats, a low-carb Philly chicken cheesesteak, buffalo shrimp bowl, vegan fried rice, jerk chicken tacos, deep sea salad and much more.
Sound convenient? It is, but PMP has also furthered its services to offer more options to those who are social distancing at home and even help out those who are on the front lines fighting COVID-19.
“We’ve shifted our services to now offer grocery deliveries to our customers where they can order produce, and we’ll always throw in provisions, whatever is available,” says Batt. “Maybe some eggs, pasta—whatever type of stuff that we can send to our customers. The bulk options on our site have been really popular with families. Stuff like our cooked rice by the pound and cooked proteins by the pound is also ultra-convenient for people during these times. The name of the game right now is to stay away from people and stay inside so it goes hand in hand. We also have something going on right now where our customers can make donations, $10 will provide two meals for two healthcare workers and that’s definitely helped us out a lot. A lot of my workers, they work in restaurants Monday through Friday, so for them, times are tough. A lot of them were laid off so it’s been a fortunate situation for us because we are able to employ more people throughout this whole thing.”
Providing employment for workers who desperately need it, offering bulk products for families’ benefits and meals for our health care heroes are just a few of the positive aspects for PMP. Although their mission has been to provide quality meals (3,000 to 4,000 weekly to be exact), it’s that extra bit of selflessness that makes this service truly delicious.
“People are struggling to get food, so what can I do here to make this effective? It’s more so just trying to allocate our resources in this situation to help people out, and people have been really thankful for it,” says Batt. “If we’re already busy and we can come together to do something that’s going to help the community, I think that says a lot in itself.”
To learn more about Performance Meal Prep, visit eatpmp.com.
