Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Harding.
Ashley, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When I was 27, I became a stay at home mom of two. One child just entered Kindergarten and the other one was 1 year old. This was my “gig” for about two years before I started to feel unfulfilled. I wanted to find who I was as an adult outside of being a wife and mom. Don’t get me wrong – being a mom and wife is THE most important job I’ll ever have, but I wanted to pursue my passion and what’s better than making a living doing something you love?
I am very passionate about nutrition and all things health! I wanted to share my passion WHILE staying home and being a mom. I’ve always been great at planning and organizing and I was very aware that there were people out there that WERE’NT so great at planning and organizing! So, I decided to combine my planning skills and my love for nutrition and I started offering healthy low-carb meal plans for $15.
I made a Facebook page where I could market and post recipes and draw in followers. I started sharing my service and my Facebook page in all the local buy, sell, trade groups and with family and friends. I started seeing growth and started seeing SALES! I also had clients messaging me telling me about the weight loss they’ve had since using my meal plans! That was such an awesome feeling knowing I was helping these people reach their goals! This inspired me to pursue my personal training certification and also to become certified in nutrition.
I did these meal plans for about nine months and during that time, I had clients asking me if I would not only create their meal plans for them but if I would meal prep for them as well. I turned these offers down for a while – as much as I love cooking for the family – the thought for cooking for others (for a job) made me nervous; I’m NOT a chef!
After months of being asked to meal prep – I decided to give it go! This was about the time the Keto Diet was becoming big. I was already doing low carb meal plans so I just switched it up and started using the word “Keto” which was becoming the buzz word for low carb at the time.
I made a Keto menu and posted it on my business Facebook page. My first-week doing meal prep, I had about 40-50 meals to make… talk about a learning experience! It was hard. It was time-consuming. I didn’t get to spend Sunday with my family anymore. I considered quitting – but this small business I started not even a year ago was growing before my eyes and it didn’t want to lose what I started.
It had been nine months of meal prepping on my own (with some help from my husband). In April of 2018, I was getting orders for over 100 meals a weekend and could hardly keep up! After some thought, I realized if I wanted to keep growing, I would need to hire a chef! Within two weeks of that thought – I found and hired a Chef! Not only did I get to grow my business, but I no longer had to cook AND I got my weekend back for my family!
Orders were continuing to come in and only TWO weeks after hiring a chef, we had to expand our meal prep operations to a Commercial Kitchen in Dallas! We were doing an average of 250-300 meals and 100 desserts every weekend! Not only did we experience a boom in sales, but our Facebook page had grown to almost 11,000 likes and followers and continued to grow! With this amount of followers, we were constantly being asked if we could ship our food. So, in December 2018, we started SHIPPING nationwide!
If you would have told me five years ago, I would own my own business AND be a stay at home mom… I would have thought you were crazy! I never thought I would have the knowledge or skills to be a business owner when all along I DID! All you need is a passion and determination and you can achieve anything! I can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store for Keto Kitchen Kreations!
Has it been a smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been smooth! Learning to cook 50-100 meals with very little space was a challenge in and of itself. There was a lot of running back and forth to the store mid-prep and money lost! There were Sundays that my kids needed their mommy, but I wasn’t available because I was running around like a crazy person trying to prepare 100 meals on time. There were growing pains when hiring a chef and then even more growing pains when we started shipping.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Keto Kitchen Kreations story. Tell us more about the business.
Keto Kitchen Kreations offers freshly prepared Keto meals for people who are on a Ketogenic or low carb diet. We are proud of our freshness and flavor! Most meal prep companies offer bland boring meals. Our meals are flavorful and delicious! You will never feel like your on a diet when eating our meals! Not to mention- very affordable!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We just made a huge step by shipping our meals nationwide! We would eventually love to expand our menu options and offer custom meals. There’s been some talk of opening a local storefront – but we’ll see!!
Pricing:
- Breakfast averages $6-8
- Lunch & Dinner averages $10-13
- Desserts average $3-4
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ketokitchenkreations.com
- Phone: 817-637-9005
- Email: info@hardinghealth.com
- Instagram: @Keto.Kitchen.Fit
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ketokitchenkreations
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