Fitlife Foods offers a solution to a common problem: how to eat well while leading a full, busy life

In recent years, Tampa, FL, has gained national recognition as a growing tech and business hub, providing the ideal backdrop for the entrepreneurs to establish and foster their innovative companies.

Fitlife Foods is the Southeast’s leading fresh-prepared meals retail and delivery company with millions of meals served annually. Their vision is to provide customers with flavorful, yet balanced meals and snacks that promote healthier living.

David Osterweil, a Tampa native, is Fitlife Foods Founder and CEO.

Fitlife Foods started in 2011 as a single store in Tampa providing 300 meals per day. Fitlife Foods now has 12 retail locations and operates weekly home deliveries. Its 15,000 square-foot Culinary Center is located in Plant City, FL.

Fitlife Foods Executive Chef is Chris Austin. With over 20 years of culinary experience and a passion for bold flavors, Chef Chris Austin has crafted a menu to satisfy every craving.

Fitlife Foods is a combination of a restaurant and mail-order service, it produces around 65 different breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack options that can be purchased at a Fitlife retail location or delivered to the customer’s home.

Each meal is chef-prepared, and fully cooked. Meals are portioned, balanced, and contain no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or preservatives.

Fitlife uses 39 original sauces and 13 spice blends to flavor its meals. “In so many experiences with any type of fresh-prepared meal or maybe a frozen prepared meal service, it just kind of tastes like the box it came in,” its chef says. “That’s never acceptable for us. It’s always got to be at a higher level.”

Inside, an 1,100 square-foot kitchen space is the only place meals are outside of the cold. Cooked ingredients then move from a blast chiller to prep areas, where team members assemble the meals in precise proportions within food- and microwave-safe plastic containers. Assembly rooms are kept at a chilly 36 degrees to ensure quality and safety.

“The biggest thing we’re always trying to go for here is food safety and flavor,” Fitlife’s chef says. “It’s got to taste good, but it’s got to be safe.”

“At the core of it, we’re trying to create items that are craveable and that people are truly going to want to eat,” Osterweil adds.

Flavor was a key component for Osterweil to overcome the perception that Fitlife is in the business of “diet” food. While simpler options like Supercharged Chicken — grilled chicken with sides of sweet potatoes and broccoli — are popular, some of Fitlife’s top-sellers are meals like the Tampa Bay BBQ Beef and Mac and Cheese, chicken enchiladas, and orange chicken.

What are the first words out of most customers’ mouths? “I didn’t think it was going to taste that good,” Osterweil says.

The dishes on the Fitlife menu are presented in such a way as to strike a balance between healthy meals that taste indulgent and meals that seem straighforward but take some work in the kitchen.

The company works with registered dieticians to ensure each dish falls within specific calorie, fat, carb, protein, salt and sugar ranges, substituting healthier ingredients wherever possible (see: a zucchini-mushroom base for the chicken “pizza” supreme, or a flax- and pumpkin-seed cheesecake crust).

This winter, Fitlife Foods announced the launch of Corporate Meal Solutions as a new employee benefit.

Corporate Meal Solutions integrates weekly meals as a nutritious and delicious benefit into workplaces supporting talent recruitment, engagement, and retention. Fitlife’s Corporate Meal Solutions program focuses on the transformation of a workplace by providing a daily wellness benefit focused on nutrition to fuel physical and mental health.

“Prior to COVID, we offered discounted Fitlife Foods meals to our staff. Upon return to the office, we provide free Fitlife meals as part of our commitment to employee wellness,” said Tampa Bay Rays President Matt Silverman. “The feedback from our staff about our partnership with Fitlife Foods has been overwhelmingly positive.”

“With our Corporate Meal Solutions program, we empower employees to save time, eat healthier and avoid energy crashes. Companies can now do more than just talk about employee wellness, but demonstrate it by investing in it,” said David Osterweil.

Having the Culinary Center near Central Florida allows Fitlife to supply locations across the state and potentially add on major Southern cities like Atlanta.

The company focuses heavily on its delivery business.

“We wanted to see what really took hold, and we saw that delivery was where the customer wanted us to be,” Osterweil says.

One reason Fitlife has resonated with customers is the company’s unwillingness to lean into trends. “We’re not fad-driven. With flavor and being a better choice for people being our core drivers, you’ll find items on our menu that are paleo-friendly, keto-friendly and dairy-friendly. We have options that fall within those parameters, but we don’t subscribe to being one way or the other.”

Instead, Osterweil says, Fitlife Foods is meant to be a solution to a common problem: how to eat well while leading a full, busy life.

“We’ve always said, just go eat the food and enjoy your life,” he says. “People will say, ‘Well, it’s a meal.’ Yeah, but it is legitimately solving something for somebody. If you continually and perpetually are solving that problem for people, then you are succeeding.”

By Gilbert Castro |ENC News