After struggling to find healthy food options while dining out that fitted with his gym diet, Gary Greenhill decided to take matters into his own hands.
Starting his own meal preparation business, Super Lean, Gary is now selling around 3,000 meals per week from his kitchen premises in Leven.
The firm’s rapid growth over the past three months since launch has seen the team now expand across Fife.
Co-owners Gary, 36 and Fraser Moncrieff, 27, met at the gym and their mutual interest in nutrition and looking for healthier options resulted in the fruition of the business.
They have now secured partnerships with Gym64 in Kirkcaldy, Raw Pressed in St Andrews, East Fife Football Club and some local gyms in Leven.
What dishes are available at Super Lean?
Currently a head chef, sous chef and 10 other staff members including packaging and delivery drivers are employed by the duo, and the business offers 24 options for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
“Our inspiration is that we love to eat out all the time,” said Gary.
“We aren’t chefs ourselves but we know how good food tastes and how we want our food to taste good but also be better for you.”
Dishes include prawn linguine, chicken katsu curry, salt and pepper chicken, and for vegetarians there’s halloumi jalfrezi with rice, veggie lasagne and mac and cheese.
Breakfast options include a new pancake range with topping choices of peanut butter and jelly, white chocolate and raspberry, strawberry and Nutella, and Biscoff and milk chocolate.
Customers primarily order through Super Lean’s website and food can be ordered any time until Friday at noon for delivery on Sunday, and Monday at noon for delivery on Wednesday.
There is also an option to have leftover boxes that the food comes in picked up to be recycled, too.
Gary co-owns another healthy food business, Bare Baked, with personal trainer and health enthusiast 29-year-old Megan Murrie.
Operating from the same kitchen in Leven, Bare Baked offer a vegan, low calorie and low sugar breakfast granola free from gluten, nuts, eggs, soy, and dairy making it suitable for all diets.
Intolerant to egg and milk himself, Gary saw this opportunity to partner with Megan.
He said: “Megan perfected the recipe and then I helped her with making the food in bulk and making the margins more manageable.”
The product has been well received by the Fife community within the business’ first three months and Gary is positive it will continue to do well.
Future plans
For Gary and his business partners the plan is now to grow beyond Fife and deliver to even more health conscious customers across the country.
However, there are various obstacles in his way that he and his partners need to overcome first.
Gary said: “The reason we haven’t branched out of Fife yet is because of the different product’s shelf life.
“Because everything is cooked fresh, we struggle to go out of Fife without affecting the freshness.”
Gary has plans to invest £40,000 into a nitrogen machine that puffs the gas into the meals.
This machine will help remove moisture from the meals and which will give them a longer shelf life of up to seven days. The investment of the machine would then allow them to deliver on more days and to further locations.
Depending on the success of the partnership with Gym64, the team is also looking to potentially add a café into the venue in Kirkcaldy selling their meal prep options.
Gary says plans are in the pipeline, however no commitments have been made as of yet.
Conversation