Making Meals with Precision Prep

MAKING MEALS WITH PRECISION PREP

“WHAT’S FOR DINNER?” The elusive question rocks most households around suppertime. Busy lifestyles and lack of planning add to the conundrum of what to cook, leading to unnecessary stress and unhealthy choices. A South Valley company, Precision Prep, has created a solution to help customers eat healthy without the stress of daily meal preparation.

Lauren Evangelho opened Precision Prep in 2015 after her personal training clients became excited about what she was cooking for dinner. Her meals weren’t the ordinary healthy go-to of chicken, brown rice and broccoli, and people liked what she was bringing to the table.

Photos courtesy of Precision Prep

Unable at that time to have her own commercial kitchen, Evangelho rented a kitchen from the Veterans Memorial Building and consolidated all of her cooking into one day. Three years later, Evangelho opened her new location on the corner of Willis and Murray, and now has six employees.

In addition to cooking balanced and delicious meals, Evangelho began a second business, Visalia Kitchen CoOp, a shared commissary kitchen for the community. Seven renters slice and dice at the downtown space Tuesday through Friday. But the weekends are for Evangelho and her team, smashing a 40-hour work week into three days of prepping, cooking and delivering.

When the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, Evangelho jumped at the opportunity to help her neighbors. Naming the initiative “Feeding the Front Line,” Evangelho added a donation page to her website where customers could purchase meals for essential workers. Precision Prep matched each meal donated. Evangelho remembers, “I had no idea what to expect. The amount of support we got from the community is very heartwarming. Everybody just saw a need and wanted to jump in. It was exhausting, but well worth it.” When all was said and done, Precision Prep donated 1,100 meals to 19 facilities including pharmacies, nursing homes, hospitals and grocery stores, blessing Tulare County essential workers one supper at a time.

Evangelho grew up in the kitchen helping her mom and dad make dinner. To this day, she values the importance of an evening meal. “We always had dinner around the table,” Evangelho recalls. “I want to bring that to other people, give them less stress so they can get back around the table.”

Meals come in a variety of sizes, including bulk trays for larger families, and all dietary needs can be accommodated. •

Precision Prep • (559) 280-2635 www.precisionprepvisalia.com

Homegrown in the Valley, Natalie Caudle finds beauty in the mundane and is ever on the hunt for the perfect salsa recipe. A mother of four, this minivan chauffeur is passionate about adoption and strives to perfect the art of balancing grace and grit.