A new industry is emerging in the Spokane market to serve busy families that find it difficult to prepare evening meals.


No less than five meal-preparation businesses that operate a total of six Spokane-area outlets have sprung up since late 2003 to offer customers the opportunity to prepare ready-to-assemble meals on site, then take them home and freeze them until theyre cooked and served.


Customers typically schedule a time to come to one of these businesses and prepare 12 four-to-six-serving meals at 14 to 16 food stations where ingredients, measuring devices, and recipes are provided. Customers pay about $200 for an order of meals of that size.


The time it takes to prepare 12 dinners to feed six people each is two hours or under, says Jenny Guthrie, co-owner of Class Act Cuisine, who, with business partner Susan McLauchlin, opened their first store in December 2003.


Business at Class Act went so well that Guthrie and McLauchlin opened a second outlet in September. Guthrie says experienced customers who are in a hurry can prepare 12 dinners in an hour. Smaller families and couples are given the option of dividing the portions in half, creating 24 meals for about the same price.


Many customers schedule time in groups to turn their meal-preparation sessions into social outings, says Guthrie. The camaraderie is a big part of the whole ambiance, she says.


Each of the meal-prep businesses buys ingredients; prepares and positions the raw food components, with recipes, at food prep stations; and talks first-time customers through the process. Some offer only main entres, while others also offer some servings, such as rice, potatoes, and pasta, as side dishes.


Layouts differ from one meal-prep business to the next, but customers, typically wearing sanitary gloves, build one meal at a time, rotating from one recipe station to the next. Each station, only a few feet in width, includes a series of plastic bins of varying size that contain ingredients for a meal. Customers measure most ingredients, depending on what the recipe calls for, and put them into disposable trays or ziplock bags, with some ingredients, such as pasta, packaged separately by the business.


Meats and pasta portions are pre-packaged in separate bins, with meat taken out and added to the meal as it is being prepared at the business. Some ingredients, however, must be frozen separately.


Cooking instructions are attached to each individual meal.


Although there are cost savings to the customer because the meal-prep businesses buy in bulk, the biggest savings is in the time, says Roger Williamson, owner of the Dream Dinners franchise in Spokane.


Im a convert, says Amy Mickey, a full-time working mom from Spokane who nightly has to feed a husband, who often works long hours; a 6-year-old; and a 3-year-old. We love the food and we love the variety. Its a great value, and I go to the grocery store a lot less.


Initially, Mickey says, she was reluctant to try the new service, but now utilizes the split, 24-meal package option once a month and serves those meals for 70 percent to 80 percent of her familys evening dinners.


While some meal-prep businesses like Dream Dinners are franchise operations, others such as Class Act Cuisine, are independent. One, Cena LLC, located at 12501 N. U.S. 395, plans to offer its own franchises for sale, with a franchise fee of $25,000, by the end of April.


Cena co-owner Tami Badinger says that company, which opened in June 2004, has tried to set itself apart from other meal-preparation outlets here by recommending and selling wines to go along with the entrees it offers, and also by operating a bakery and offering single meals sold ready-to-go. Through Cena, Badinger and business partner Nancy Hough employ 15 people.


Both Badinger and Hough are high school language teachers in addition to operating the business.


Located in a 1,200-square-foot space at 13220 E. Sprague near a ShopKo store, The Meal Maker is an independent business owned and operated by Barbara Marney. Before launching the business a year ago, Marney studied Internet sites promoting meal-prep businesses elsewhere and visited other meal operations in Western Washington. The venture now employs three part-time workers in addition to herself.


Unlike the standard 12-meal package, Marney offers seven-, 10- and 14-meal packages, saying that many customers lack freezer space for larger meal counts. To distinguish Meal Maker further in the market, she also provides customers with approximate nutritional value information, such as carbohydrate and fat content figures, for the entrees they make themselves.


Dream Dinners is a fast growing Snohomish, Wash.-based franchiser that had 66 outlets in 18 states by the end of 2004 and plans to open another 90 franchise stores this year. It launched operations in the spring of 2002. Williamson, the owner of Dream Dinners Spokane franchise, at 328 N. Sullivan, runs the operation with his four daughters.


The menus for all Dream Dinners stores are standardized; like others, rotated monthly; and include chicken, beef, pork, seafood, turkey, and vegetarian entrees, says Williamson. A couple of favorites are chicken Mirabella and pepper-crusted London broil, he says.


Another meal-prep franchise, called Dinners Ready, opened a store here in August, at 2622 E. 29th, in the Lincoln Heights shopping district. The Seattle-based franchiser currently has five stores in Seattle and plans to open five more there in April, says Tavis Throm, director of operations for this area. He says the same people who own the Spokane franchise plan, in the next two to three years, to buy additional franchises and plant one or two more additional outlets in the Spokane area, one in Coeur dAlene, and one in the Tri-Cities.


Busy families


Both Guthrie and McLauchlin, of Class Act Cuisine, are former home economics teachers, though Guthrie is now on a leave of absence and McLauchlin has become a librarian.


Guthrie says, We agreed that it was extremely important for families to sit down and have dinner together, and said the partners viewed the opening of Class Act as the perfect way for a business to address that concern, given the busy lives of families these days.


There are national statistics that say that families who sit down and eat together have lower teen-pregnancy rates, less drug involvement, and smoke less, she says.


Class Act Cuisine is located at 3022 E. 57th, in Cedar Canyon Village, and at 9021 N. Indian Trail Road, in the Sundance Plaza. It employs a total of 14 people at the two sites.


Marney, of The Meal Maker, says her business now will assemble meal packages for customers for a small additional fee.


Dinners Ready, which has a local staff of eight, also extends that option at an added cost of $30 to $40 for the standard 12- or 24-meal options, and also offers delivery service. Delivery for now is free, but that will change in the next few weeks, says Throm.


Most outlets include the cost of disposable pans, foil, sealable plastic bags bags, and disposable bowl containers in the total price of their meal packages. Those that dont sell those items or let customers bring their own.


Meal-preparation outlets here typically ask for at least a 24-hour advance notice for a customer to come in and prepare meals, so that they can procure fresh ingredients for the meals.