09/26/2026
♥️ A little heart-to-heart about Mel Prep Co ♥️
If you’ve wondered where I’ve been the last couple of weeks… I needed a break.
Not because I stopped caring about Mel Prep Co. Quite honestly, it was the opposite. I needed to step back, take a breath, reset, and really think about where I want to go from here.
When I started Mel Prep Co a little over a year ago, I had a very simple vision — I wanted to help people.
I wanted to help the mom who has spent her whole day taking care of everyone else and suddenly realizes it’s 5:30 and she has no idea what she’s making for dinner. I wanted to help the family who is tired of eating out but is also tired of planning, grocery shopping, prepping, cooking and cleaning every single night. I wanted to help the person stuck in that dreaded “what are we having for dinner?” rut. I wanted to make it possible to pull a homemade meal out of the freezer in the morning and think, “Okay. One less thing I have to worry about today.”
Getting to do that for so many families over the past year has genuinely been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Knowing that something I made in my kitchen helped make another family’s week a little easier means more to me than I can probably put into words. ♥️
But I also want to be honest about something.
I’ve struggled.
I’ve had a lot of moments where I’ve wondered, “Why aren’t more people using this?” I know that’s something so many small business owners experience. You put your heart into something, you believe in it, you know the value of what you’re offering… and then you look at the number of orders and wonder why the response doesn’t always match what you know you’re capable of providing.
Some weeks I have 4–5 families ordering and I feel so encouraged. Other weeks, I have one order. Sometimes none at all.
Please know that I am grateful for every single order. If one family orders from me that week, I am thankful that I got the opportunity to serve that family.
But I also have to be realistic. When I’m only making meals for one or two families for a week, the time, groceries, preparation and work that goes into it simply doesn’t leave enough room financially to make the business sustainable.
I think the hardest part for me has been the inconsistency. Not knowing whether next week will be 5 orders or 1.
So during these last two weeks, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions—
✨ What does Mel Prep Co need to look like for this to actually be sustainable?
✨ How can I make this work better for me while still making it worthwhile for my customers
✨ What do people actually want?
I’ve been considering things like minimum orders, multi-week commitments, and other ways to create a little more consistency. Nothing is set in stone. I really want to hear from the people who have supported me already, as well as the people who have thought about ordering but haven’t.
And I also want to be honest about what I can realistically offer. I will always do my best to accommodate individual preferences when I can. Want the broccoli left out? Need to swap a protein? Want to substitute one meal for another? Those are things I can often work with.
But I am also just one person.
I’m raising and homeschooling two kids, keeping up with extracurricular activities and all of the other craziness that comes with family life, while also doing every part of this business myself and in my own little kitchen.
I would LOVE to be able to offer completely separate gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free and other specialty menus someday. But right now, that simply isn’t realistic for me.
And I’ve also realized that I have to be careful not to build Mel Prep Co into something that takes me away from my family or becomes so complicated that I no longer enjoy what I’m doing. Because at the heart of all of this, I still love the reason I started.
I love helping people.
I love hearing that dinner was easy that night.
I love knowing someone had a homemade meal waiting in their freezer on a crazy week.
I love creating food that my own family eats and being able to share that with yours.
So… I’m coming back to you guys. ♥️
Do you want to see a Mel Prep Co menu tomorrow? And if the answer is YES, I want you to tell me what you want to see.
✨ What meals would make you immediately think, “I need that in my freezer”?
✨ What are you constantly looking for ideas for?
✨ What would make Mel Prep Co more useful to YOU?
I want to make sure that if I’m going to spend my time and energy putting together another menu, I’m going to be making things that people actually want.
So tell me. Seriously. I’m listening. ♥️
Because even after a few weeks away, I still believe in what Mel Prep Co can be — homemade meals with less hassle. Less “what are we having for dinner?” A little more breathing room for busy families.
That’s why I started this in the first place so I’d really love to hear from you about where we go from here. 🥰
