July 25, 2025
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You've perfected your recipes and your first customers are raving. But now, you're spending less time creating in the kitchen and more time drowning in spreadsheets, packing boxes, and answering emails at 11 PM. Most guides talk about marketing and menu design, but they skip over the single most important ingredient for growth: your team.
Data from successful meal prep operators shows that businesses with structured hiring processes achieve 60% better staff retention compared to those hiring reactively.
Scaling a meal prep business isn't just about handling more orders—it's about building an operational system of people who can execute flawlessly. With the global meal kit delivery market projected to hit $25.69 billion by 2025, the opportunity is massive. But you can only capture your piece of it if you have the team to support the demand.
As Brad Miller emphasizes: "It's all about culture, right? And Chef Ariel, who's my right hand, is helping me build this business arguably more than anybody else in the world... You don't have to have it figured out right away... allow yourself to grow. Don't be too hard on someone. They're going to learn. You're going to learn."
This guide isn't another high-level checklist. It's a practical blueprint for structuring your team at every stage of growth, transforming you from a frantic solopreneur into a confident CEO.
Your team structure shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all model. It needs to evolve with your business. Here's how to think about your staffing needs as you grow.
Right now, you are the team. You're the Head Chef, the Packer, the Delivery Driver, the Marketer, and the Head of Customer Service. This stage is all about proving your concept and building a small, loyal customer base. Your primary focus isn't hiring—it's defining the core functions of the business so you know what to delegate first.
This is where the cracks start to show. You're consistently selling out, but you can't physically chop vegetables and pack boxes any faster. The quality of your customer service might slip because you're too busy in the kitchen.
This is the trigger point for your first hire. The goal isn't to replace yourself, but to buy back your time. Your first hires are almost always in the kitchen or on the road: a Part-Time Prep Cook to handle the heavy chopping and portioning, or a Contract Delivery Driver to free you from spending hours in traffic.
At this stage, you can no longer manage every detail. You need leaders who can own entire functions of the business. You're no longer just delegating tasks; you're delegating responsibility. This is when you start building a true organizational structure with specialized roles designed for efficiency and scale.
As you move into Stage 3, you need to build a team around four essential functions. While one person might wear multiple hats at first, understanding these distinct roles is key to creating a business that can run without you.
This is your first and most critical leadership hire. The Kitchen Manager owns the back-of-house operations, freeing you up to focus on business growth, marketing, and strategy.
Core Responsibilities:
Investment Note: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for a Food Service Manager was $65,310 in May 2024. Factoring this into your financial planning is crucial for making a sustainable hire.
Prep Cooks are the engine of your kitchen. A great prep cook is fast, consistent, and has a meticulous eye for detail. They ensure the entire cooking and assembly process runs smoothly and efficiently.
Core Responsibilities:
Your packers are the last line of defense for quality and accuracy. Their work directly impacts the customer experience, from the presentation of the meal to ensuring every order is correct.
Core Responsibilities:
This role is the central nervous system of your business. They manage the flow of information between your customers and your kitchen, ensuring a seamless experience.
Core Responsibilities:
Building Culture Over Process
Megan Scott of Planted Table shares her approach to team development: "We never hire at the management level. We always promote from within is something that we've done from the beginning. We invest in our staff, when we find good ones, we'll send them to training, different management courses try and work with them on our management style."
She emphasizes the unique nature of kitchen culture: "The kitchen is a different beast... Some people come, we're a woman owned and run kitchen and we like a very calm, respectful environment and some people come in with guns blazing, coming out of a high energy, toxic male dominated kitchen, and we have to completely change the energy levels."
The Power of Timing and Natural Growth
Brad Miller's journey illustrates the importance of organic team development: "I actually hired another manager and didn't work out very quickly, because I thought I had the vision of... here's the third tripod piece we need, but it wasn't the right timing... It's all about timing. It's all about people. It's all about place and you can't force it."
He discovered that promoting from within often works better than external hires: "I realized I had already had the pieces we needed in house. I just needed to pivot them. So Ariel actually took on that position that I was originally hiring for. It just made so much more sense."
Defining roles is the first step. The next is to translate them into practical tools you can use to hire effectively.
Vague job descriptions attract vague candidates. Be specific about the tasks, requirements, and what success looks like. Here's a simple, effective template you can adapt:
Sample Job Description: Prep Cook
Job Title: Meal Prep Cook (Part-Time)
About Us: [Brief, exciting 1-2 sentence description of your company and mission]
The Role: We are looking for a reliable and efficient Prep Cook to join our growing team. You will be the engine of our kitchen, responsible for prepping ingredients and cooking components for our weekly menu. The ideal candidate is passionate about food, works well in a fast-paced environment, and is committed to quality and consistency.
Responsibilities:
Requirements:
Not every role needs to be a full-time employee. Using a mix of employment types is a smart way to manage costs while getting the help you need.
Part-Time: Perfect for roles tied to specific production days. Hire Part-Time Prep Cooks to handle your peak Sunday and Monday prep rushes without committing to 40 hours a week.
Contractor: Ideal for specialized functions that don't require constant oversight. Using Contract Delivery Drivers through a third-party service saves you the massive overhead of buying and insuring a vehicle fleet.
Full-Time: Reserve full-time positions for roles that are integral to daily operations and future growth. Your Kitchen Manager and Admin/Customer Service lead are prime candidates, as their consistent presence is needed to manage the business effectively.
Megan Scott of Planted Table's Craigslist Success: "We have tried them all. We've tried indeed message boards, word of mouth and different cooking schools and Craigslist has been really successful for us."
Building Through Culture and Retention: Rather than constantly recruiting, focus on creating an environment where people want to stay. Brad Miller's team demonstrates this: "I'm so blessed these days because our staff wants more hours. They want more days. They don't want a second job... it's so rewarding when they're like, 'I want to work for you.' For me it's just heartwarming."
Managing this complexity requires more than spreadsheets. As you scale, having integrated order management and inventory tracking becomes crucial, helping you track inventory, manage menus, and calculate costs automatically while your team focuses on execution.
Brad Miller reflects on the transformation: "If you told me that back in 21... if I had to make more than 50 of one dish, I was having a panic attack. Now if I have 50 of one dish, I'm like, where did my sales go?... Managing your growth is just as much as managing yourself, managing your leadership, and allowing yourself to grow as much as you want the business to grow."
1. When is the exact right time to make my first hire?
The signal is clear: when a specific, repeatable task is consistently preventing you from working on growth. If you spend every Sunday driving instead of planning next month's marketing, it's time to hire a driver. If chopping vegetables takes 10 hours and prevents you from answering sales inquiries, it's time to hire a prep cook.
2. How do I know what to pay my team?
Start by researching the average wages for similar roles in your specific city or state using resources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of the biggest operational challenges is staff retention. Paying a competitive wage isn't just an expense; it's an investment in stability and reduces the costly process of constantly hiring and training new people.
3. Can one person handle multiple roles?
Absolutely, especially in the early stages. Your first Admin hire might also handle social media. Your Kitchen Manager might also help with packing during a rush. The key is to define their primary role and responsibilities clearly in the job description so they know what success is measured by. This prevents burnout and confusion.
4. How can software help me manage a growing team?
Once you have more than one person, spreadsheets and text messages become chaotic. A dedicated platform centralizes everything. Your Admin can manage all orders from one dashboard instead of five different inboxes. Your Kitchen Manager gets automated batch reports and print-ready labels, saving hours of manual work. The right software doesn't replace your team; it empowers them to focus on their most important work.
Week 1: Map your current operations to identify which stage you're in and what your next hire should be
Week 2: Write detailed job descriptions for your priority roles using the template above
Week 3: Determine your budget and compensation strategy based on local market rates
Week 4: Launch your recruitment strategy focusing on culture fit and growth potential
Structuring your team is the most powerful lever you have for growth. It's the difference between having a hobby that consumes your life and building a profitable business that gives you freedom.
Start by mapping your operations to the three stages of growth, define your core roles with clarity, and hire strategically to manage your costs. As Megan Scott of Planted Table notes: "Having enough time to do everything is hard and balancing having a family and wanting to do other things besides just work with growing a business... Staffing is hard... when you have a good team, make the most of it."
Ready to build your powerhouse team? Explore our Launch Accelerator program for hands-on guidance building your team and scaling your operations with the exact coaching and tools successful operators use to thrive.
The meal prep industry rewards those who can execute consistently at scale. Your team is how you get there.
Great food builds customers. Great teams build businesses. Invest in both, and you'll join the ranks of meal prep operators who've scaled from kitchen table startups to thriving enterprises.
Book your free strategy session with a meal prep growth advisor. We’ll discuss:
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