Emily Brown sorted through food piled onto a cart in an Anchorage commercial kitchen, double-checking that the entire order was ready. There were prepared, individually wrapped Italian focaccia sandwiches, plus the ingredients for cauliflower shrimp tacos and beef fajitas — all ready for the recipient to quickly assemble themselves.
“This order here, they ordered all large meals,” said Brown, administrative assistant at Alaska Dinner Factory.
In many communities across the country, Americans have embraced meal-kit services like this — where all of the ingredients for a tasty dinner are delivered to your doorstep. But most national options aren’t widely or easily available in Alaska. So local companies like Alaska Dinner Factory are stepping in, and trying to fill the state’s meal-kit void.
Brown said Alaska Dinner Factory’s subscriptions are most popular among families. The company started in 2006 after the owner realized that cooking takes away from family time.
“A lot of people don’t think about how valuable that time at the end of the day just sitting together at the dinner table is,” Brown said. “The whole goal is just bringing people back together and saying, ‘Hey, how was your day? What happened today?’ And food just makes it so much more comfortable.”
But it’s not just families, Brown has noticed an uptick in elderly couples ordering frozen meals.
The company has a daily delivery program called Alaska Fresh that provides microwavable meals to elders. Each comes with a protein, starch and a vegetable.
All meals are made to order, which results in minimal food waste, Brown said. The company’s menu rotates between 14 different entrees each month. The family dinners feed six people and cost about $35. Meals can last up to a year in the freezer. If customers forget to order, they can also swing into the company’s storefront and pick up a microwavable meal from the cooler.
Meals require minimal cooking on the stovetop, in the oven or a crockpot. Each meal is packaged with clear cooking instructions, Brown said.
“The most amount of work you’re putting into it is boiling some water to cook some pasta, and then heating up the other ingredients to throw together,” she said.
The company delivers around 3,500 meals every month across Alaska. It began shipping to rural communities in 2022. Brown said rural orders don’t account for a large portion of sales, but the company has regular customers in Kodiak, Wrangell and Nome. Delivery has extended to include smaller communities, too, like Brevig Mission and Adak, where food costs are significantly higher.
It’s not the only meal service that ships to rural parts of the state. Feed Me AK is an individual meal prep service and ships wherever Alaska Airlines flies. Instead of larger portions, the Anchorage-based company sells individual microwavable meals for as low as $10.50
Amber Rotar, who opened the business in 2017, said there are many reasons why someone might opt for a premade meal.
“The best reason that I ever got from somebody was a woman who had raised like six or seven kids. She’s like, ‘They’re gone now. And it is just as many dishes for me to make dinner for me as it was for seven people. And I’m not into it,’” Rotar said.
Rotar was a bodybuilder who used to meticulously plan and prepare her meals. A friend suggested she turn it into a business. Originally, she thought other bodybuilders would make up the bulk of her customers. But she said her meals are most popular among working professionals.
She said meal preparation takes a lot of time and patience.
“Meal prep is kind of considered like a luxury item,” Rotar said. “If you get down to it, you can do it yourself.”
Both Rotar and Brown have lots of competition. There are plenty of options for convenient meals like restaurant takeout or the ready-to-eat deli at the grocery store. But Rotar said those options aren’t often as healthy as home-cooked meals.
Each of her meals are sold with a nutrition sheet, so customers know how many calories and how much protein, fat and carbs they’re consuming.
She said she doesn’t sacrifice flavor for nutrition.
“I want people to have good, healthy, enjoyable food,” she said. “I hope that comes across not only in what I make, I actually care about what I produce, and I care about the people that use my service.”
Rotar said she’s looking to expand. She’s working to add more pickup locations on the Kenai Peninsula and hopes to sell the meals wholesale to coffee shops and gyms in the near future.
