Why is the Meal Prep / Meal Assembly Kitchen Franchise Failing? Part 2

(FranchisePick.Com)  Also read:  Why is the Meal Prep / Meal Assembly Kitchen Franchise Failing? Part 1

Why is the Meal Prep / Meal Assembly Kitchen Franchise Failing?   Two words:

GREEDY FRANCHISEES.

That’s right.  Moneygrubbing,  materialistic franchise owners who don’t care what they’ve got to cook or who they’ve got to feed to get their oven mitts on more of their filthy lucre. 

These avaricious entrepreneurs tricked noble companies like Dream Dinners into letting them invest $250,000 to $370,000 under the false pretense of wanting to serve their communities.  In actuality, their insidious secret plot all along was to build profitable businesses!   In the words of Dream Dinners co-founder Stephanie Allen: “Their bottom line was the dollar.”

“Their bottom line was the dollar.”

Like the Pope, Stephanie has been touring the country, spreading her message of hope to the surviving franchise owners and introducing them to new Savior/CEO Darin Leonard.  Stephanie Allen delivered her epicurean encyclical recently in an interview with the Charlotte Observer.  According to the Observer interview:

At least five Charlotte-area meal assembly stores have closed in the last year, including the original Charlotte Dream Dinners location. At the same time, others have continued to open. Dream Dinners, the largest meal prep company, now has 232 stores in 37 states, including five locally.

Some blasphemers have said that this “hot new concept”  might be suffering from an unproven business model in need of development;  others of little faith have suggested that these meal prep companies do a crappy job even explaining, much less promoting, their concept and its advantages. 

But St. Stephanie has set the record straight:  There is nothing wrong with the business model.  The problem is with ye franchise owners of little faith who put false gods, like profitability, ahead of the pronouncements she herself delivered via confidential operations tablets on Mt. Snohomish.

From the Charlotte Observer:

Q. I’ve read that the meal prep industry shows signs of slowing.

It’s that shakeout. If you’re doing a poor job executing your business model, you’re going to not win. If your cash flow problems push you into doing something that’s not helpful for your business, you’re going to lose.

Q. Where do you see yourselves going from here?

There’s three ways to grow. One would be to grass-roots grow. One would be to get a capital infusion and really kick it up to the next notch. And then there’s acquisition. We’re looking at all three right now.

Q. You’ve had some stores close. What would you attribute that to?

Poor execution. Not having owners whose No. 1 reason for getting into the business was to take care of and serve their communities. Their bottom line was the dollar. You have to have that, too. But you can’t have just that. It’s a combination of not giving excellent service and poor quality food.

Q. What’s the most valuable piece of advice you could give?

You’ve got to focus on the end result. You’ve got to focus on the guest: What they take from your store, how are they eating it at home and how wonderful it is that they can’t live without it and they have to come back. S

Perhaps Dream Dinners franchise owners also suffered from the sin of Pride, thinking that their franchisor considered them their customers.

Photo credit:  IdeaFarm

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