If you’ve been following celebrity chef Jamie Oliver lately, you know that he’s been on a crusade to bring fresh and healthy food to the schoolchildren of the LA Unified school district on his TV series, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. It’s been a struggle so far, but the goal is a good one.
But why should the “food revolution” be limited to just our kids?
You know you should be packing a lunch with broccoli and fresh lettuce and carrots but you don’t’ have the time or creative energy to come up with something tasty. You just want fresh food to throw into your bag without any fuss. Much of the food industry’s processed rubbish food is easily portable, but who wants to eat it?
It’s a problem Corey Rennell, founder of CORE Foods, wants to solve for the working professional. He refuses to eat processed foods with candy-like ingredients. He is regularly spotted in San Francisco traffic with a huge bowl of salad in his lap. In founding CORE Foods, Corey and his team seek to provide truly healthy food for busy people.
His new CORE Meals are a full, fresh meal on the go. They are made of five simple, raw, organic ingredients that are mixed together with no sweeteners, flours, oils or additives. To learn more about the business, we asked Corey a few questions.
How did you come up with the CORE Meal?
As a young mountaineer, I received international attention from an expedition I was involved with. I was invited by the BBC & Discovery channel to travel with five other athletes around the world to subsist with twelve tribes and practice their tribal sports. I had a short period of time to get my fitness up to par. I used a combination of nutritional science research, empirical athletic formulas, and my observations of subsistence diets in the tribes we lived in to help me build what became the first CORE Meal. With this and a simple training program, I transformed my fitness in under six months.
What health needs were you considering when developing the CORE Meal?
In attempting to transform my fitness quickly while travelling constantly, I faced a significant challenge. I needed a quick portable meal with a proper balance of healthy fats, lean proteins and complex carbohydrates with absolutely no sweeteners or fattening agents. Available “to-go” options were so packed with sweeteners, sugar, flours and oils that I couldn’t make any progress. I created CORE Meals to fill this void.
What is the biggest nutritional problem people face today?
Contemporary fears about optimal nutrition have confused very simple principles. If you can visualize how something grew, it’s food. If you can’t visualize it, it’s not—it’s as simple as that. How did an apple grow? On a tree. How did an egg grow? From a chicken. How did mayonnaise grow? Ummm… ’nuff said.
Our digestive systems are not built for our current diets. Processing food has created tremendous sources of energy. Refined sugars and flours rush energy into the body, are consumed quickly, and don’t fill the stomach. Nearly all foods in supermarkets have processed sugar and flour as well as ingredients that are chemically produced, pulverized, transformed or ground to a point that they are unrecognizable. If it’s shelf-stable and it doesn’t come off a tree or out of the ground that way, it has been processed. Remember that real food spoils!
What challenges have you faced as a business?
One of our largest obstacles has been trying to convince consumers and retail outlets that they want to have a fresh, perishable bar in their lives. When grocery stores are saturated with food that has an infinite shelf life, it’s been a struggle to help people build a new mental paradigm when it comes to “the bar”.
Tell us a little about how you arrived at your business model.
When I first considered bringing the CORE Meal to market, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved in “the world of business.” With the help of my colleagues, we developed a set of company values that I could commit to. As the owner, I am dedicated to donating all my profit to charity. Additionally, we are committed to minimum living wages, capped executive salaries and a having zero carbon footprint. It’s all about giving back to the community and world that supports us and makes it possible for us to do what we do. We want it to be clear that we are in business to do something good in this world.
Do you have advice for other entrepreneurs?
Pick something you love. You are going to spend unhealthy amounts of time working on your entrepreneurial venture so it better be something you feel is worth your time. Make your personal goals and values clear at the start, surround yourself with people who care about your vision, and love what you do!
