Hey Fit Fam! It’s great to be back.
I missed you all last month and hope you will excuse my absence. The wife and I were fortunate enough to continue our annual trend of exiting the rat race and trotting this magnificent globe for the third year in a row. Your loyalty and our team’s hard work and dedication make it all possible and for that I am unbelievably thankful. There is much to talk about this month so lend me your ears!
Our CEO on his latest adventure Camel riding in Cappadocia
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Too many of our lives have been impacted by this horrible disease and our team here at Catered Fit is no exception. In 2010, one of my oldest friends and I started Catered Fit in his home kitchen. His Mom, Ingrid Lawrence, was our first Chef (no way we could have afforded one in those days) and was also host to more sleep overs throughout my childhood than I could possibly count. Ingrid, aka Ingy Bird, lost her battle with breast cancer shortly after CF’s founding and forever changed both of our lives. In honor of our Ingy Bird, and all the other incredible women (and even men) who have been impacted by this form of cancer, Catered Fit will be running a breast cancer awareness campaign in which all of our proceeds will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. This will be our third consecutive year running this Breast Cancer Awareness promotion. Keep your eyes out and hearts open to help us rally for the cause.
For those of you who have been following along on this Catered Fit journey for more than a year, you know that every fall we announce new exciting things. Sometimes new products, sometimes new technology, ALWAYS new menu items, and this year is no different…Drumroll please…
As I mentioned earlier in the year, our national shipping campaign launches January 2020. Our original vision for CF nearly ten years ago was to open up kitchens on each coast so that we could ship fresh food to every doorstep in between. Well, what was once a dream is soon to become a reality! If you live outside our daily delivery areas, you will soon be able to enjoy Catered Fit too. We will be offering the same array of fresh meals all of our customers have grown to love, except they will be delivered once per week via postal carrier in an insulated box. This process is only possible because of the newest and most technologically advanced “toy” we have ever had our oven mitts on.
For the last year we have been working tirelessly to perfect the process, taste test every meal, and design a menu that is not only delicious but is specifically customized to travel well. We have been the only company in America to prep, cook and plate fresh meals every day of the week. As we wanted to expand our reach, we didn’t want to compromise quality or taste, so we took what we knew about quality, fresh ingredients and how to prepare them, with one exciting twist for our new national members; Instead of snapping on the lid to your meals, we will run them through a VaccuFresh machine that removes all the gasses from the meal to preserve it! (Don’t worry, there are no preservatives here– just some really awesome science about lowering atmospheric pressure that allows the meal to stay fresh in your fridge for up to 21 days!)
We are beyond excited and we are calling on all of you to help us spread the word to your friends and family across the nation and will have one sweet deal for any referrals you send us!
My wife and I spent much of the past month trekking the globe. From 2010-2017 work consumed nearly every waking moment of my life. Throughout that stretch spanning nearly a decade I was never spared two consecutive days off. While I would have liked a long weekend here and there I would have scoffed at anyone who suggested I take a few weeks a year and labeled them a “slacker” or “lazy”. My naivety was astounding. I can look back and appreciate the lessons learned from so many years of total commitment and unwavering sacrifice in hopes of financial gains; However, I have no doubt there is a better path.
Work life balance is a phrase thrown around water coolers in offices across the country nowadays and that is a positive trend. It is also a historically “un-American” trend as we have been unknowingly programmed to believe that a few long weekends a year is “living”. We are NOT just what we do for a living. There is much more to life than working relentlessly until legal retirement age to begin checking things off our bucket lists.
In 2017 CF began offering two weeks of PTO to everyone on our team. At years end there were always a few handfuls of folks that didn’t use their PTO and we would buy that time back from them. My recent reconnection with life outside of what I do for a living led to a swift policy change for the coming year; It will now be mandatory that everyone on our team take their two weeks off each year, even if it means they are forced to “staycation” on their couch. There is no doubt that we are all happier humans and better coworkers when we have had a few weeks a year to disconnect from what we do and reconnect with what gives us joy.
With the holidays coming up, we hope you find some of that time for yourself.
Health is Wealth,
Adam Friden/CEO