Tasty. Healthy. Easy.
Those three things are what people look for the most in a meal, says Snap Kitchen CEO Dave Kirchhoff, but it's not easy to find them all at once. Fast food may be tasty and easy, but not necessarily healthy. A frozen meal may be easy and healthy, but not always tasty.
Companies like Snap Kitchen and Simply Fit Meals are hoping to bring all three criteria together. Both stores follow the grab-and-go concept, offering healthy meals in convenient microwavable containers, along with juices and snacks. Simply Fit Meals has locations at 3020 West Seventh St. and 1116 Eighth Ave., while Snap Kitchen has a location at 2828 West Seventh St.
"Fort Worth is a bustling city," Kirchhoff said. "It's really taken off as a city with a great food scene in its own right. It's a city that has a lot of people that are very health and fitness-minded but don't want to sacrifice quality of food."
And it's more than just grilled chicken and salad – Snap Kitchen, for example, offers a variety of meals, from Asian-inspired dishes like Coconut Curry Beef or homestyle dishes like gluten-free turkey chili. Snap Kitchen's best-selling dish in Fort Worth is its Chicken and Green Chile Enchiladas, a meal that totals about 430 calories.
Kirchhoff said his personal favorite is the Bison Quinoa Hash, made with ground bison, organic red quinoa, reduced fat cheddar cheese, beans, rice, and a variety of spices like cayenne and cumin. The meal is between 320 and 620 calories, depending on the size.
The company also launched a vegan menu in October, featuring items like Spicy Dan Dan Noodles and Creole Fab Cakes – vegan "crab" cakes made with organic hearts of palm, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, almond flour and the vegan mayonnaise Fabanaise.
Another option for quick healthy meals is Simply Fit Meals, which aims to marry the concepts of "eating" and "dining," said CEO Chris Sanchez.
According to Sanchez, eating and dining are two separate things – while eating refers to simply fueling the body, dining refers to actually enjoying the food, he said.
Sanchez says he hopes the food at Simply Fit Meals can create the experience of both.
"You're having something that's checking all the boxes," he said.
One popular Simply Fit Meal is the Greek Turkey Burger, made with turkey breast, Kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes and parsley and served with asparagus, grape tomatoes, and Tzatziki sauce. The meal has about 229 calories.
On the sweeter front, Simply Fit Meals offers smoothies like the 268-calorie Purple Rain, a blend of banana, blueberries, bee pollen and almond milk, along with Maqui, Maca and protein powders.
For business executives on the go, it's easy to compromise health for convenience, Kirchhoff said.
But he said he hopes the convenience of a healthy grab-and-go meal can help make it easier for the business community to avoid the fast-food/TV dinner route.
"Life is too short to eat food like that," he said.