All Real Meal Puts Fresh Spin on Delivery

Co-owners Kasia Lojko, left, and Sonia Farris. Photo by Matthew J. Mowry.

Being a foodie in a world that’s always in a rush isn’t easy. Several gourmet meals by mail businesses have tried to change that, but the ingredients often have to be sliced, measured, assembled and then cooked.

Kasia Lojko, a mother of two, was looking for healthy meals she could have delivered ready to eat but found the choices weren't healthy enough for her.

So in 2013 she started her own business, All Real Meal, creating meals using mostly organic ingredients and delivering them to customers’ doors ready to pop in the oven. “We make inspired, beautiful food that happens to be gluten-free, mostly organic and supports New Hampshire businesses,” says Sonia Farris, a friend of Lojko who joined as co-owner three months after its launch.

Both women are self-described foodies and passionate home cooks. But neither are formally trained cooks. Now, more than two years later the business is growing, tapping into two food trends—demand for fresh, local and healthy food delivered ready to eat.  “I couldn’t make things that are fried or with additives or from cheap ingredients. I’m from Poland. I’ve always made things from scratch,” Lojko says.

All Real Meal has a weekly rotating menu, a key to its growing popularity that keeps many clients coming back for more. There is always some type of mason jar salad and mason jar dessert offered and some type of quiche, sandwich or pizza in addition to other offerings, such as grass-fed local beef or wild-caught fish.

Clients order online and food is delivered Tuesdays to coolers clients must leave outside their homes, Lojko says. Some clients come to them because their meals fit with more restrictive diets, such as those on the Paleo diet, or who want gluten-free or GMO-free food. “Whatever recipes we find, we recreate them to be gluten-free or Paleo,” Farris says. Adds Lojko, “We have people who had recent changes to their diets, and we show them all kinds of ideas.”

As word of mouth has spread, so has the company’s delivery area. All Real Meal started in a commercial kitchen in Manchester, delivering primarily in the city. It now delivers as far as Concord, Nashua and the Seacoast. When their mentor John Stavropoulos retired and closed his commercial kitchen, the duo moved All Real Meal to Creative Chefs Kitchen, a food business incubator and commercial kitchen in Derry.

The company now has an active mailing list of more than 200 clients and, based on client feedback, recently introduced a pre-pay plan so customers who order weekly can pay $500 to $1,000 in advance for convenience and receive $250 worth of meals free. The company also offers catering services.

While the duo would not disclose specific financial figures, they report six-figure annual sales, with the average order ringing in at $100. “The last six months have been 50 percent more in sales from last year,” Lojko says.

All Real Meal is hoping to expand into supermarkets and retail stores with a cauliflower pizza crust. They are launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund this latest endeavor. For more information, visit allrealmeal.com.