Catering stopped, but this Wisconsin chef cooked on with take-and-heat meal service
APPLETON - Stuffing cranberries into pork tenderloins, stirring butternut squash risotto, assembling a kale and pomegranate salad and baking red velvet cake were the tasks David Bennett was prepared to tackle when FourOne Food Group opened.
The pandemic scrambled those plans, but Bennett didn’t crack under the pressure. Instead, he rushed to launch a take-and-heat meal service called Prepd.
Prepd, part of FourOne Food Group, wasn’t ready to launch when the COVID-19 pandemic slammed into Wisconsin last spring. Its success is a testament to Bennett’s resilience in the face of the adversity the restaurant industry has endured in the past year.
Before the pandemic hit, FourOne Food Group’s main revenue was coming from traditional catering events around the Fox Cities and meals served at a nearby brewery taproom. But then, catering orders evaporated. Taproom food service slowed.
Prepd became the most viable option to keep the business going.
Bennett said Prepd has grown to serve an average of about 40 customers ordering multiple meals each week.
An unexpected culinary journey
Bennett, who grew up in Neenah, first began working in restaurants and a summer camp kitchen while studying nutritional science at UW-Milwaukee. Then he transferred to Northern Michigan University because of the college’s highly regarded catering program.
After graduating with a biology degree and more than a year of prep cook experience from NMU, he enrolled in the culinary arts program at Kendall College in Chicago.
Instructors and classwork sharpened his technical skills and knowledge. He worked as a line cook for GT Prime in Chicago, where catering high-end weddings and fine dining for large events developed his practical experience.
After he graduated, Bennett’s high school friends encouraged him to move back to the Fox Cities, where they had opened Barrel 41 Brewing in Neenah.
“The original idea was to get a kitchen so I could do food at the brewery,” Bennett said.
But the brewery doesn’t have enough space for a commercial kitchen. One of the brewery’s owners is a distant relation of the owners of Schweitzer’s Catering, who were selling the business.
Schweitzer’s Catering was acquired in fall 2019, becaming part of FourOne. Bennett planned on catering events and serving food at Barrel 41 Brewing’s taproom in 2020. Prepd’s ready-to-heat meals would be created and tested during that time.
With a busy holiday catering season in full swing and taco Tuesdays taking flight at the brewery, everything was going as planned in early 2020. Then COVID-19 hit.
“Almost overnight we stopped catering,” Bennett said. “The lockdown came and everything got canceled.”
Traditional catering still hasn’t come back. Bennett has since rebranded the catering business as Prepd Catering. It offers a menu of options for single-portioned meals that are delivered readyto-heat or hot and ready-to-serve. When it’s safe and demand returns, Bennett said, he will add catering similar to what was offered through Schweitzer’s.
The pandemic also halted taproom dining. After bars and restaurants were able to reopen, tacos and other foods were served in Barrel 41’s outdoor space until the cold weather scuttled that option.
Prepd for success
While the Prepd concept was pressed into service sooner than expected, the idea had been marinating for the past few years. It was inspired, in part, by the growing popularity in Chicago of meal kits, pre-portioned and ready to cook meal supplies, Bennett said.
“Around here, we were thinking of something between going to a restaurant and a meal kit,” Bennett said.
Developing quality take-and-heat meals, though, presented new challenges.
“The biggest challenge is how to get it right so it tastes the same the second time it’s cooked,” Bennett said.
Bennett got to work in the catering kitchen making, reheating and tasting dishes.
The result is a menu that has pleased palates and provided easy lunch choices and weeknight meals.
A blend of Midwest favorites like beef tips, lasagna, and Italian dishes has been in demand, Bennett said, but customers also gobble up a Thai peanut salad with spring rolls given the chance.
Another popular option is family meals with an entrée, salad, side and dessert, that Bennett said feeds four to six people, such as meatloaf, cheesy potatoes, garden salad and apple crisp.
Bennett sidelined the family meals in January to prep meals and salads aimed at helping customers follow New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier, offering options like Asian glazed salmon with carrot and cucumber salad, za’atar-spiced cauliflower with wild rice and apricot salad, and pearl couscous salad with falafel fritters.
He said the weekly family meals will return this spring.
“Demand is growing surprisingly fast,” Bennett said. “We’re learning what people really want.”
Customers can , place orders at fouronefood.com. Prepd is also open for walk-in business for carryout orders at 1280 S. Van Dyke Road, Appleton.
“Prepd has been a lot of fun, because we can try a lot of things, if something doesn’t work we can take it off the menu,” he said. “Today I’m making two new things for the menu. We can do it in small quantities that we can’t do with catering.”