When Ameer Hassan, Riley Tatonetti, and Olivia Stone started up UNREFINED meal prep in 2021, none of them had ever cooked professionally before. Hassan was an entrepreneur, Tatonetti was a personal trainer and enthusiastic amateur cook who regularly posted healthy recipes online, and Stone was a mental health therapist.
There weren’t many meal prep services in Cleveland, Ohio, where they all lived, and Hassan thought the new business would fill a niche for young professionals like himself. Tatonetti, who’d first learned about nutrition and food science as part of her recovery from an eating disorder, and Stone, who’d been diagnosed with autoimmune diseases in her 20s that severely limited her diet, thought they should focus on healthy meals with clean ingredients. Everything would be gluten- and dairy-free and prepared without seed oils or extra sugars.
The three owners decided they would learn how to run the business through trial and error. They started with older equipment: a conventional multi-rack oven and two kitchen ranges. It was a struggle.
“What we noticed,” Stone recalls, “is that they were giving inconsistent quality. And it took a lot of time to do things.” Delicate foods like salmon would stick to baking trays and break into pieces. It took 45 minutes to cook a tray of potatoes.
Then one of their vendors introduced them to a sales rep for RATIONAL. They visited the showroom and watched a few equipment demos. “We were really sold on the spot,” Hassan recalls.
Once an iCombi Pro oven and iVario Pro tilt skillet joined the UNREFINED team, the co-owners saw an immediate change in their business. For one thing, it took a lot less time to cook everything, even in bulk. The salmon didn’t stick to the tray anymore, which made the finished product look a lot more appetizing. The iCombi’s probe ensured that every piece of meat was cooked to the appropriate temperature. And the steam function kept roasted vegetables and baked goods moist instead of dry. Everything cooked in half the time.
Best of all, the quality of the food was consistent. Both the iCombi and the iVario have ConnectedCooking, which allows users to create custom presets for how they want food to be cooked. “You can literally program any type of meal you want in there,” Hassan says, “any plate, any dish. You plop it in, you press it, get going. You walk away and you know the job’s going to get done correctly.” Even Hassan, who had no cooking experience, was able to help out in the kitchen.
The automation and speed of both the iCombi and iVario allowed the UNREFINED team to streamline their operations. The three owners were able to spend less time in the kitchen and more time strategizing about the business. It was easier to schedule workers and delegate tasks amongst the small team. Before long, they were able to prepare and deliver 2000 meals a week. In just six months, they began to see a return on their investment in the new equipment.
Because of the iCombi and iVario, they don’t have to worry about the food part of the business anymore. “We feel a lot more confident and comfortable knowing that our staff is here with such amazing equipment,” says Hassan. “It really gives us the confidence to grow the company in other ways and dedicate our time there, too.”
To learn more and schedule a demo, visit the RATIONAL website.
This post is sponsored by RATIONAL