BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Square One Markets, a convenience store in Bethlehem, Pa., has launched a pilot for a new dinner kit that allows time-starved customers to quickly prepare nourishing family meals in less than 30 minutes.
The all-in-one kits provide healthy options to consumers and eliminate three significant downsides to many popular meal-delivery kits: cost, packaging waste and the need to plan a day or more in advance to order them.
Square One Markets is selling The Six O’Clock Scramble Fresh & Fast Family Dinner Kits, developed by The Six O’Clock Scramble, a company that offers fresh and fast family dinner solutions. The dinner kits provide all-in-one meal ingredients and recipe cards that contain everything time-stressed families need to prepare a meal. They sell for around $20 and are designed to feed a family of four. At $5 per person, the dinner kits are less than half the price of meal-delivery services and without the packaging waste and carbon footprint from shipping.
The kits also will feature some locally grown and produced ingredients from the Bethlehem area.
Click here to view sample menus.
Square One Markets and The Six O’Clock Scramble worked with the Project on Nutrition & Wellness (PNW) and the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) to develop the family dinner kits.
The September 30 launch at the Square One Markets store features cooking demonstrations and recipe sampling from noon to 6:30 p.m. featuring the creator of the dinner kits, cookbook author, Today show contributor and The Six O’Clock Scramble CEO Aviva Goldfarb.
Square One Markets will offer the dinner meal solutions for the next 10 weeks as part of the pilot. It will offer a new meal each week, and the groups will survey customers to determine which meals worked best and why.
“Our customers are excited to be part of this pilot test and look forward to redefining convenience with these meal solutions,” said Square One Markets CEO Lisa Dell’Alba. “It makes so much sense to create this program for drivers already fueling up.”
“The evening hours are when families stress about dinner preparation plans. This evening rush is also the most popular time to buy gasoline. This is a great way to combine two trips into one,” said Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives for NACS.
“Square One Markets, with nine convenience stores selling fuel in and around Bethlehem, Pa., is a perfect test for the national concept, especially with its full-service fueling and curbside delivery service at select stores,” said Julie Garel, director of the Project on Nutrition & Wellness
“As more families have two working parents and busy schedules, it can be a challenge to plan for healthy meals, let alone make an extra stop to purchase the ingredients. The Six O’Clock Scramble Fresh & Fast Dinner Kits provide a convenient and affordable solution for busy families, and gets them on their way quickly to a healthy family meal,” said Aviva Goldfarb, CEO of The Six O’Clock Scramble.
Families that want to cook more meals together but can’t say that the main reasons are busy schedules (43%) and they are too tired after school or work (31%), according to a new NACS consumer study conducted by Penn Schoen Berland. This dinner kit addresses both obstacles, the group said.
More than three in four consumers (77%) say that they would be interested in purchasing an all-in-one meal kit from a store. Convenience store customers are especially receptive: 85% of weekly convenience-store customers would purchase a dinner meal kit, according to the survey results.
The Project on Nutrition & Wellness (PNW), a program of the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, leverages the knowledge, influence and resources of the public interest and private sectors to improve the nutritional health of the nation. PNW brings together individuals and groups--with expertise in consumer behavior, marketing, public health, nutrition education and public policy--to create a major, unified shift in demand for healthier foods and put market forces to work to address obesity, diabetes and other nutrition-related conditions.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.