The B Team Podcast
Talking all things Business, Bentonville, and Bourbon. Hosted by Josh Saffran, Matt Marrs, and Rob Nelson. New episodes every Thursday!
The B Team Podcast
Ep. 91 - Eating Clean Without Spending a Fortune
What if clean eating didn’t mean bland food, complicated meal prep, or $15 drive‑thru compromises? We sit down with Stu of Stu's Clean Cooking, a veteran who shed 100 pounds and turned his personal transformation into a fast‑growing meal company that serves up real food at real‑world prices. He breaks down the simple framework that actually sticks: whole ingredients, smart portions, and options you’ll want to eat again tomorrow.
We get candid about the science and the traps. Stu explains why insulin control matters, how ketones help mobilize fat, and where “keto” goes wrong when it becomes candy with a label. Then we walk through the menu—from brisket mac and pork carnitas to quinoa bowls—showing how “healthy” and “kind of healthy” lanes keep adherence high without sacrificing flavor. The kicker: most meals land in the 500–700 calorie range, with protein front and center, and prices starting at $6.99 when you buy in bulk.
Behind the scenes, Stu's mechanical mind fuels consistency. He builds custom smokers, sizes veggies to reheat evenly, and runs separate protein smokers to protect celiac and alpha‑gal customers. We talk storefront strategy, delivery options, workplace freezer stocking, and why a central kitchen keeps costs down. He also opens up about the limits of scaling without USDA certification, the frustration of being ineligible for SNAP despite offering nutrient‑dense meals, and how community support and transparent labeling win trust.
If you want practical nutrition that fits a busy life—keto without the gimmicks, macros without the math headache, and frozen meals that actually taste fresh—this conversation is your playbook. Try the app, grab a dozen, and make better your default choice. If you enjoyed this, follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with a friend who’s ready to trade fast food for real fuel.
Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I am your host, Josh Saffron, with my co-host, Matt Mars, and our permanent guest, Rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bentonville, urban, and business. The B Team Podcast. Be here. Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Saffron, with my permanent alternate. Permanent alternate guest, somewhat Jim. Jim Corbin. And if I looked across at my co-host Matt, now Matt does not look like Stu, like muscle, like he really looking guy across the way, like Will. And then normally Matt sits there. Clearly, someone who's been following my lifting regimen. I mean, there's no doubt. I mean, he could probably bench pressure about the same as you. Yeah. I mean, you know, we'll we'll arm wrestle before the end of the podcast. Sounds good. You know, I got I got a few bucks to put on myself. I feel very confident. Yeah, I mean, I'm not that good at it. But normally I look across at Matt, and I'm, you know, I'm looking at this guy that's not chiseled and in good shape. Broughty paper towel shirt on, uh, a trucker cap suit. Yes. So I'm much happier looking across at you. I appreciate that. Yes. And we're here every Thursday for all things Bettonville business in bourbon. And before we introduce Stu, and I'm excited to eat the food, Janet, we have a JS Bull Reserve. Talking about J.S. Bull Reserve. What am I looking at? JS Bull Different Infinite. Was on the podcast two weeks ago. He does a bourbon club, and this is a store pick from Nashville Barrel. It just came out October 25th. 24th, right? Yep. Now it's 130. 130 some odd proof. Fantastic. Thank God we have a car service bringing us home. That's a spicy. We'd offer you another you say you don't drink. No, I appreciate it though. All right, I want to try this, Jim. Yeah. Creme brulee, a little stall fruit. And in all honesty, we're gonna have a lot of you know good things put in our body. We gotta kind of balance it with some bad right out of the gate. That's right. It's it's a balance. That smells fantastic, actually. That's this Nashville barrel. I get to take this one home, right? Absolutely not. You're not part of the plug. Wow, that's that's definitely got a lot of spice to it. A lot of spice spice and heat, but it's good. You can put a drop of water as as Russ would tell us. Russia Hampton would tell us. Bring out the steel fruit. No dropper. Normally you have a dropper.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the nice stainless steel. You watch this, Josh.
SPEAKER_01:This is pro tip. Pro tip is right. See, now I can now I just put a drop in.
SPEAKER_00:I was always fascinated to watch it dance in the glass whenever you put it in there, because you could see it work its way through.
SPEAKER_01:That's good with the water. That took a lot of the heat out and the taste now just it still retains the the smell, it's great. I always felt like it opened it up more. Just really got the floral party things. Nashville Barrel JS Bull Reserve. Shout out to JS. Isn't it better with the water? Like it's tasty. It's really good. At that point 34 proof, it needs a little bit of tell you what, I feel like I've given myself a good base to start talking about our podcast topic for the day. Yes, now I'm gonna now I met Stu through this networking alliance with Queenie B very quickly. I can't believe how much she's blown up in such a short period of time. Unbelievable. I'm just absolute congratulations on that for her. It's incredible. Five weeks, six weeks, and the amount of she told us my my my podcast or my podcast, my my post on the podcast had like 20,000 views in four days.
SPEAKER_00:That's what she was saying about mine, too. It's like I still go back to it. It's like 300 likes or something like that in like a very closed group. I mean it's public, but like we it's new groups. That's wild. It's like the interaction in that group is is just all off the charts.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, Josh and I were talking about it's like, you know, we're old older gentlemen, but but we're used to, you know, hey, networking means you know, you meet a few people. The level of acceleration you can get on these online things is just unbelievable. But did you go to her event she had on Tuesday?
SPEAKER_00:I didn't know why. It was it's shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, like I was just like, I got this no way. This is brand new. There's no way this is gonna be awesome. Shoulder to shoulder, packed out top. It was just the one at Top Golf. Yeah, like I had to like go out there and like it was it was wild. It was so humbling for me because I didn't quite realize how many people have actually like had my food. I mean, I should. We sold like 800,000 meals a year, but like it's it uh it it it really just is kind of mind blowing because I couldn't even go five seconds everywhere. I turned to like, oh, I'm gonna go get a breath. Somebody else is right there. Let's talk, let's me. I can blah blah blah. It was but it was super friendly, no pressure.
SPEAKER_01:800,000 meals a year was actually my meal plan in college. That's exactly I I mean I paid a little extra, but you know, that was my meal plan in college. It was great. Well, but but joking aside, you and Corey and Rob, everybody's lost a lot of weight and lots healthier, and we moved to better eating, and hence I want to introduce us to Stew's clean cooking. Now, I didn't realize you've been around since 2016, and I've seen and heard the name, but first of all, where do we find you? Where are you in grocery stores? You have your own.
SPEAKER_00:I was brick and mortar, so it's a weird thing. I love the gray areas of things. Like, so to start out, this is like a really funny when you can't sell food out of your house. And so when I was very first legally, like legally, no, you can't. There's like homesteading you can do it with like cakes and stuff, but like when it comes to like meats, you have to be health inspector. I absolutely girl scouts in my neighborhood who have a lot to answer for, right? 100%. But like If you think about people with pets and stuff like that, you don't want them handling all that. You want to be a clean, designated space. Well, I had started losing, I lost 100 pounds. That's how really all this for you. I appreciate it. Congratulations to you guys as well. The uh and my friends looked at me and they go, guys, how did you do this? Like, you don't look like you're on drugs. And I was like, we we've been working out with you. You don't work out any harder than we do. And I was like, I just eat this food. And they're like, Can I have some? And so I was like, sure. And you were making it at home for yourself in your kitchen? Yeah, just it was just well, it was it was way different. You know, when you cook it for yourself, you know, you you have like glass containers or Tupperware jars or whatever it is, and that's how the packaging was. But it was always it comes down to we have three food groups. The government wants to convince you there's four, but dairy comes from a cow, that's meat. So then we have three food groups. Yeah, and so then if you just think about it, you put a little bit of each food group in a meal. You know, you have meat, veggie, carb, unprocessed, you know, God's food without ingredients, and you just eat that three, four times a day. Your body knows what to do with it. Processed food is the problem. Yeah, processed food is the real issue. You know, the least less you do, the more your body knows what to do with it. The more that is done to it, your body's like, I don't know. Or it's actually like designed now, it's more designer foods to hit all of the key taste buds that make you addicted to it. You know, really what we're doing with the problem is mostly food addiction. You know, sugar is so addictive. And so when your body gets all these things into it, it will spike your insulin, and then your insulin goes, Well, I'm just gonna store this for winter. But essentially the problem is we never have winter. We have grocery stores. We don't have or have to go through a time where we don't have food. And so we just keep packing it on, packing it on, packing it on. And uh when you start eating real food, that unlocks the key of we're gonna reduce the inflammation, we're gonna reduce this because essentially that's what weight gain is it's just inflammation. You know, your fat cells, they don't get more of them, they just get bigger.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna have a ton of questions for you because this to me is a fascinating, and and I'm curious because you say you started in 2016. Yeah. So pre-COVID. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I might be. Since COVID, I really do feel like this whole better for me, understanding ingredients, people wanting to be healthier, people not necessarily trusting guidance from whether it be a food and drug administration or from uh, you know, all like just people questioning and people wanting to make decisions that will put them in a healthier spot. Oh, so God forbid, God forbid we have these things that come after us. How can I make my body naturally healthier to fight off these issues that come up, or frankly, take off pounds and be healthier? Because it does feel like it does feel like companies are out to you know sell you food, and if they can get you addicted to food, they're gonna do it by any means necessary in a lot of cases. Talk to me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00:So yes, and especially in the last year. Like I would say so. This year is where I can really see that awakening that you're talking about of people are becoming interested in truly becoming healthy on the inside and out. You know, there's always been the quick fixes. Everybody wants to go, you know, the fad diets of you know, South Beach, or I'm gonna do the all peanut butter diet or whatever it is. Um, but essentially when they started hitting on keto a couple years ago, that's that's the real that's the real deal. But that's still it's human nature. Everybody wants to shortcut stuff, you know, and so they they go to the keto candy bars, the keto they started slapping keto on everything, and the corporations figured that out. But the the real thing that they're talking about is ketones in your body. You know, that's the the we have two things in our bodies that one that puts things in fat and one that takes them out. Insulin puts everything in fat, ketones takes it out of fat. And so in order to, you can't have both at the same time of both of them working. So you have to stabilize your insulin levels in order for ketones to work. And that's essentially where the the high fat, low carb diets come in. But it's hard to do that because our world is so just Did you learn this stuff yourself? You self-taught? Yeah. Well, I mean YouTube University and you know, experimentation on myself, but that was that was like you don't have a background in diet be as a dietitian or anything like that. Like, so that's that's the thing. I mean, I I so my history is I'm from New York. I I heard you love that. Where about New York?
SPEAKER_01:Uh Poughkeepsie fish kill area. Okay. What we would call on Long Island upstate. Yeah, yeah, sure. It's the last stop on Metro North. Went to school at went to school in Albany.
SPEAKER_00:So actually, that is upstate way up north. Yeah, that's much more upstate than Poughkeepsie. And so I I I did go there and I, you know, like the traditional American family, my parents split up, and so I spent a lot of time in Connecticut as well. Uh, Mystic area, you know, right down by the shirt store. Yeah. Um and I I shout out to Foxwoods Casino.
SPEAKER_01:Foxwoods. Definitely lost a few bucks there. We definitely are gonna have people going scratching their heads like I don't understand the thing. Foxwoods?
SPEAKER_00:What are you talking about? I need five, you know, the uh and so they New York, I it's so expensive up there. You can't get a foothold to start on it. Criminal. It's awful. You know, and it it's so cold, everybody's angry. Like it's just like, and so I was like, I gotta go. And so I joined the army. And thank you for your service. You guys are worth it. Everybody's worth it. You know, that's that's the part of it that everybody needs to realize like we don't join the army for ourselves. We we we have a calling to do something more, and it has nothing to do, it's because we love our country. You know, it's it's not about oh, I gotta do this or I'm doing this for you. It's it's you're worth it, we're all worth it. So the people that are called to to join the army, amen. The people that aren't, okay, that's cool. You know, that's what makes the the world go round. But uh, I joined the army, I was a medic. Um, I did a tour to Iraq in 2000, end of 2006 to the beginning of 2008. Um that was uh a little spicy. It was you know, good times, the convoy escorts. Uh came home and then proceeded to find the bottom of every single bottle I could find. And uh if you do that and you mix it with Chinese food, you tend to get fat. I got real fat. I was about 310 pounds, miserable. Um, I think I was on eight or nine pills from the VA. You know, just like just like, oh yeah, take this, take this, take this. And thank God I went to I'd filed for disability and a physical therapist and downstairs here in the Fayetteville VA, she looks at me, she goes, You're 32 years old. Go pick up some freaking weights. You know, and I was like, Whoa, whoa, yeah, all right, that's that's different, you're right. And I was like, all right, so I did. And uh you must have been in great shape in the military, right? I mean at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then then you kind of go through and they just force me to eat crap all the time. And then drinking and you know, all that. But the I at the very beginning, I did. I was I was in fantastic shape, running all the time, doing push-ups and like crazy. And uh, but I I went to the VA and she said, Go pick up some weights. And so I went and joined a CrossFit in 2014. Um, and who turned out to be one of my very best friends, his name's Nick Tucker. Um, I was lifting weights with him and get really strong. I mean 500 plus pound deadlifts, you know, squatting almost 500 pounds. I know the life. Yeah. But I I looked like Eddie Hall. Like, you know, the I had big barrel belly, you know, huge neck. I I didn't if you can lift that much, you want to be able to show that you look, you don't want to just look like you you're just fat. And so at that point, I was like, it's gotta be something in the food. And so then I started doing all the diets, the South Beach diets, the I even went vegan for a while. Yeah, it I mean, it works. It all of these things work because they're all about non-processed foods. But I just found like when I went vegan, I was missing something. You know, there's nothing wrong with it if that's your choice and the lifestyle and all that, but because you're eating it healthy. But for me personally, I needed more protein, I needed more energy. I was I was lacking, and my all my lifts went down, I was shrinking, which was kind of the goal, but I wasn't feeling great. Um, and then I I kind of just stumbled on you got to eat real food and you a lot of real food, and so that's what it came down to. A lot of basically what I was eating, though, was pretty close to the the number 20, um, which is we call it the smoke. It's brisket with like carrots and veggies like broccoli and different stuff like that, and some pops in there. Free to try these? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Please dive in. And again, so similar to what you're saying. So I want to say 18 years ago, I went into the Atkins diet. Yeah. You know, eight years ago, I went keto. Um, so I mean, and and the thing is, when you're doing that stuff, yeah, it works. Yeah, the stuff comes off. The minute you stop, yeah, it comes back if you don't if you don't develop different habits.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and that's kind of the joke I say, the most effective diet you can follow, or the most effective diet out there is the one you follow. You know, and that's and that's you know, and that's part of what it is, is our joke of we have two things on our menu. We have healthy and we have kind of healthy, you know, and you know, because a lot of it's portion control. That's actually really not that small of a meal right there. I was gonna ask you. So this is that's a full meal for one person.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's yeah, I could see myself eating that up for lunch. But you go to a good you go to a restaurant and that's not the portion you're getting.
SPEAKER_00:You're getting two X that yeah, they're filling the plate up. But they're also charging you twice that because that's$8.99. That's what this costs?$8.99?$8.99. It looks pretty good. You know, and then I'm hungry. Yeah. Well, and it has all the macros around the legal. It's great. You know, all the stuff you need, your protein. I also love the don't give up. I all I every one, it looks like they have a little slogan too. They do. They do. There's a don't give up, Jim. We well, it was I was struggling with a lot of mental health stuff. So it's Jimmy V. Yeah. A lot of mental health stuff too at the time. You know, when you're you're fat, you're overweight, you're you're struggling with all sorts of life problems. You it you you just you feel alone. And you know, so that was part of it. And I also had a an employee that got tired and took her life in in 2019. Sorry. Well, I'm very sorry too, but it in a way, it sparked something within my company that I didn't realize because I have a voice. You know, we we have 42,000 followers on Facebook. We reach half a million people a month. And but so we we make it a point every Sunday to put out a positive promotional post. We put on our meals. We have uh shirts that say actually say F suicide on them, you know, with the list and it says we care on the back, you know, or maybe you've seen the the you matter signs that people put on the streets. We print them. That's where you get them as man. Um and so we keep them in stores for anybody that wants to get them. And so just that kind of encouragement, we found out that it it's uh people want to support that, you know, and it's not why we do it, but it it was just reaffirming that when we do nice things, people want to be involved with companies like that, and then you just give them food like that, and then it's it's it's a wrap. So, where's home base for clean cooking? So we're out of the river valley. I started in Van Buren, that's where my offices are. We're kind of spread out, like it's it's I kind of call it just an active dumpster fire. Um, because it's small business, man. It always is. Oh, yeah. Um, and so I started in my house in Van Buren, and since I couldn't sell food for my house. And this was 2016. 2016. Um I I like to work the gray areas, like I said, so I sold parking. Very smart. And then you got free lunch when you parked in my house. Very smart. And uh I think this since then they've changed the rules, and you can't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_01:It's called the stew rule. Yeah, the stew rule.
SPEAKER_00:But the health department knew what I was doing and laughed. And I mean, they're like, they can't, you can't do this, man, but I can't do anything about it. And so, but immediately after I bought a food truck. And, you know, and so I started doing it out of a food truck. Um, and then eventually, pretty quickly, I had a really bad day at work and I quit and just started doing this full time. Um but that I was being a mechanic the whole time, and that was my I college degree in it, and you know, that was just really kind of what I was doing. Um and so then we went to a food truck and it just kind of started snowballing after that, you know, is we we would almost quadruple every year, you know. So when you start from nothing, you know, four times nothing is still nothing. Yep. Right. You know, we we we went uh doing like uh we did like$2,500 our first month. And you know, that it's pretty incredible. And then so Toto, so what was in the first thing we So that was the smoke, that was the like brisket with pasta and veggies. Okay. And what do we try it now? This is our brisket Mac. Brisket Mac. That sounds wonderful. Yeah, and so make sure you stir it up, get some of that cheese sauce in there. Okay. Um and but that's that's this is our our our show stopper right now. Also$8.99? Yep, also$8.99. That's really good. So we we we're like I said, I'm a mechanic, I'm not real smart. The uh we we do it brisket is$8.99, pork is$7.99, chicken is six ninety nine. Uh something up. We sell all the meats by the half pound. We even do ribs. So we have like rack whole racks of ribs for$24.99, but we call me. This is healthy? That's a kind of healthy one. Okay. All right, I feel better. That's a kind of healthy one. Yeah, really good. Yeah, it's uh but the most important thing is like it's it's uh it's portion control. You're not gonna get out of control. You know, if you you know, it's it's five, six hundred calories, you know, so you're not you're not gonna blow your entire day. But you can still have flavor and it can still be enjoyable, you know. So as long as there's still a math game involved with dieting. So like as long as you're not overeating, essentially you're not gonna gain a lot of weight. But you're you're not also not helping yourself by not having the all the proper nutrients. Now, this this is the bomb. This is this is uh this looks healthy. This is a healthy one, okay, and it's fantastic, and it's probably quinoa? Yep. So we have it's a red and black uh brown rice in there. It has quinoa, um, it has black barley, and it has some kale. And then we just cover it with our our brisket, and it has a little salt pepper on it, and that's probably my favorite meal. Delicious. That's really good. Really good. And all of these were frozen. And you saw me microwave them in the microwave. Wow, that's really good. Yeah, it's it's delicious. And so all of it comes a part of it is that we've we've sourced all our veggies from the right place so they're the right size. You're not gonna get a huge chunk of broccoli that doesn't cook at the same rate as our brisket. We know our brisket slice size, so that you know it's not gonna give you this, you know, crazy bit. We trim it right on the front side of it so that it's not you don't get these huge fatty parts or you know, any of that stuff. Yeah. And you know, we we have the right equipment to cook it, right? And so my brisket's and are you the cook? So I I come up with all the recipes and I I originally was for the first two years, but I've been training guys ever since to do it. Now, this is the pork carnitas, this is a keto meal. It's basically uh like a provolone and mozzarella cheese with uh a green salsa verde and our pull pork. Um kind of healthy or healthy? That's healthy. That's a keto meal. That's in that's incredible. I mean, they've all been incredible so far. Yep. And so that one right there, that makes three three perfect street tacos. Like you get like a little corn tortilla in there, something like that, put that right in it, or you can do a little like roll up and like good flavor. Yeah. And so that that's the joke of it, is is the pork is unseasoned. We just brine it, you know. That's incredible. Wait, we use quality everything. Yeah, we use quality everything. So like I I go and I cut the wood myself, I split the wood myself. We have certain sizes, our all our smokers are custom built for us. We all use 10 rack rotisseries, you know. So my my brisket smoker does 40 brisket at once, my pork smokers do 60 butts at once. Uh take a break. I don't want to fill up. It's better. There's money. You still got desserts and snacks and all that. How many things are on your menu? 20. 20 bits. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Question for you. Yeah. How much of your background as a mechanic helped you in designing this? And why I asked that is like, you know, you think of cars, and if you change the oil and you take care of it, and you put get good, but get cook put good gas in it, it'll run a lot longer. And if you have to see a mechanic because you didn't take care of it and you got a shit and you're fixing it versus taking care of it, like how much do you credit the background as a mechanic in terms of what you're doing today with the foods?
SPEAKER_00:Well, so that's a fantastic question. Um nutritionally fantastic question.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Require a permanent alternate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Nutritionally, it has some to do in that of eating real food, but it's it about convenience. But um my Yeah, it's cooled down a little bit, turned on the uh but mostly my mechanic background helped me with the maintenance side of everything and building everything. So if you go to one of our stores, um I I built the whole thing. Like we build our counters, we build our signs, we build everything in store because millwork is stupid expensive. You you know. Oh, I know, it is ridiculous. And contractors, I know while they're very, very good at their jobs, they're also very, very proud of their paychecks, you know, and as they should be, you know, it's a very it's a great trade to have, but if you got it yourself, you might as well do it. And so I have CNC plasma cutters, welders, all the the I have a full fab shop. And so being a mechanic in that side of when something broke, like my smoker broke or something like that, or or understanding the science, like of how an engine works. That was really the cooking side of it, is where my mechanics background came in, understanding thermodynamics and the flow of smoke and fire and all this, because I have never cooked in a kitchen that wasn't mine. Like I was never, I have zero training in any of it. Um, and so it was really figure this out as we go. Um, and I also hadn't smoked any meat before. I had never smoked meat before I started the company. It was a desperation that creates opportunity kind of thing. Um, I had a little electric Weber smoker that somebody gave me for a wedding present. And uh I was like, I can't, because when we all started, it was all grilled meats. You know, I had a grill in the backyard, I had a blackstone flat top thing. Yeah, that's why I was doing every Sunday, you know, doing all this stuff, and I was like, I can't do it. I mean, it's gonna kill me. You know, I I can't I can't make it work anymore, so I had to figure out how to cook more meat and I had a smoker. I was like, I'll just throw them in the smoker and I can do this, and then started refining the recipes and figuring out about yields and the science side of it. Um now the weight loss side of me is what really taught me the most about the food of you know, understanding, you know, having a strong medical background. You know, I I when I got home from Iraq, they're like, Yeah, go back to college. I was like, cool, I was medical, I'll go be a nurse. And so I went and went to nursing school essentially. I did the first two years, all the way up to clinical. So I have all the the science backgrounds, all the math backgrounds, all the the biology backgrounds, and all that stuff. So I really understood the anatomy and how our bodies worked with nutrition and stuff like that. Um and so that was the food side of it is understanding what and then implementing on myself and seeing where I was losing one to two pounds a day sometimes. You know, if you're if you're strict enough, you you really can do it. Um it's it's not fun, you're miserable. Discipline, yeah, it's a lot of discipline. And uh, but you know, that was that was what the military really taught me is you're not gonna beat me. You know, and you're you you can do anything, but you're not gonna outwork.
SPEAKER_01:Where are your um brick and mortar stores now?
SPEAKER_00:Where do you look at so we have up here in northwest Arkansas, we're on Southeast 28th Street, like right by one-eyed Jack's Whiskey Bar. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right there.
SPEAKER_01:I know exactly where that is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the old DMV. Yeah. That's my store right there. Um, we have two in Fayetteville, one a crossover and Joyce and Paradise Plaza. It's not like corner. The way I like to scribe it is where the the people used to protest Planned Parenthood in the other corner out there. Okay. Um the uh and then we just built one last year uh in between Walmart and Lowe's on MLK in Fayetteville, right in the same plaza as the Goodwill.
SPEAKER_01:And it's not a sit-down restaurant. No. Okay, I just pick come in, pick up my stuff and take it and go and heat it up at home.
SPEAKER_00:Or we have a microwave there. I can't by by my health license, I can't sell you hot food. Um so that's kind of why we're able to keep it cheap, is because I don't have a kitchen in each location. Okay. I'm basically on a dollar general health license. Okay. I can sell you frozen food on a different health license that's on you hot food. Um, and so that's what I do is I have one fully fledged health license that is my super kitchen that we have down at Fort Smith. It's just it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01:So do people come in for lunch and you heat it up? What percentage average is I'm gonna come in? I'm gonna grab eight meals, bring it home, keep it in my freezer, and then cook for myself. What's the what's the ratio there?
SPEAKER_00:I'd say about 10% people heat it up. Um, most people, our average ticket is 12 meals. Because that's where that's where our price points change. So when you buy 12 meals, you save$12. And so on a$6 meal, that's a big percentage. Yeah,$15, it's 17% is what our our meal plan discount is. Um, and so that's where everybody's like, oh, I can see the value of that because you know, even right now we're running our our chicken meal plan. So the the chicken bacon Swiss that's good, by the way. A$6.99. It's like 64 grams of protein in there, it's all protein. Um that with yeah, I think we have five other chicken meals that go into that.$64.99. I don't I don't know exactly what it equals, but it's in five dollar range of for real. You can't get that anywhere, not for this quality, and you take it with you. Well, that's what I was gonna say.
SPEAKER_01:So uh first time eating it, I've seen it, driven past it, heard it. But when I go out to lunch, you go out to lunch, this is gonna sound terrible. I'll go through the fast food place, I'll I'll run into neighborhood market and grab something quick and heat up. And it's costing me 10, 12, 15, 18, 20 dollars. You go through chip away drive-thru, it's 15 bucks. And it's not healthy at all. And then it's like but this makes a ton of sense. I'll grab a week's worth, bring it to the freezer at work, and then go heat it up. Why would I not do that?
SPEAKER_00:And keep it for your guys there. Yeah, like it. I mean, it becomes uh an employee, you know, tick for we have uh a couple of we have a great company out in Saddam. I'm not gonna mention my name because I don't know if I'm allowed to. You can. But they buy like 50 cases a week for their drivers. That's great. Yeah, it's a trucking company, so they make a deal with their drivers with 50 cases a week? 50 cases a week. So it's a it's like an entire store out there, just and we just bring it to them.
SPEAKER_01:And do you deliver it all? Like if I wanted to order this and you know, put it on a subscription, get uh get seven meals a week delivered to my house on a Friday.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I mean you can you have to do it every time. Like we don't do subscription because inevitably somebody will forget or something will get left on the doorstep and it'll go bad, and you know, it's people will be upset. Okay. You know, so we want to do it as is, no memberships, no, you know, needed to pre-order, but you can't. Um, we do have a delivery service through DoorDash. Okay. You can go to our website and when you pick it says pick up location, you can toggle over to delivery and it can be delivered. It's like six dollars for a delivery or something like that, and you have to be within a certain range of one of the stores. Um, but it will tell you all that, and you can see if it's available and it will deliver it to you. Um, but we just recommend we have an app you can just go on and order, just pick up on your way home. You know, most people drive by or pretty close to it. You know, we that's why we have so many locations. Um, is they just grab it, bring it home, stick it in your freezer.
SPEAKER_01:Would you say your core customer is more the person who wants to lose weight or more the person who wants to? Eat right slash bulk up. And I and I asked that because my my son Max is very much into going to the gym, very disciplined, much more disciplined than me. I wish I could do it. Yeah. But he would prop like I find him saying more and more to me, and I give him credit, like, we'll order a p we'll order a couple of pizzas, and I'll say, Max, do you want a slice of pizza? He's like, No, I'm good. Yeah. But he'll make himself chicken, he'll make himself rice. He's focused on what he's putting in because he's working out at the gym and he wants to. How much what's the cross-section of your customers?
SPEAKER_00:So I would say 75% of our customers are women. Really? Yeah. Well, it's I'm shocked. I'm shocked by that. Yeah, it's it's and demographically wise, it's 25 to 55 year old women, um, most of the time single, or a mother that is doesn't want to eat the same food as their kids. You know, like they've they're trying to be healthy, they're trying to lose the weight, you know, they're trying to do that, but that's our entrance into the house. But the other thing is they're the ones that go grocery shopping. So we become part of, you know, and I don't mean that to be a sexist towards anybody, but my wife, I I don't go to grocery shopping. She gets it all. This would be like Corey shopping for Mac. Yeah. And so I can't tell you accurately who's eating our food, but I could tell you that we're selling 950 of those brisket Macs a week. Like, and so, you know, whoever eats it likes that style. And so our our kind of healthy meals are definitely our most popular, which tells me that probably men are eating it because men usually are a little bit less on the healthy side.
SPEAKER_01:But I like the kind of healthy because you're not making me believe, hey, this is great for me, but it's not horrible like the other stuff that you get processed somewhere else. Processed stuff, sure. Yeah, it I mean it's still your menu base um kind of healthy and healthy. Do you have them bucketed that way?
SPEAKER_00:Yep. So you'll see that the green ones are healthy, the blue ones are kind of healthy. You know, we have it broken down that way. Um, and we also have all of our like allergens marked. Um, so if it has gluten, it has you know it has a red asterisk on it. So you have gluten-free options, yeah. Well, actually, most of our options are gluten-free. Wow. Um, mainly because I'm I'm gluten sensitive to it. I'm not celiac or anything like that. My daughter is type 1 diabetic and celiac. Yeah, and so that's that can be devastating. Sure. Okay, anywhere. You know, you can't do anything. You have to cook your own food. I'm gonna definitely tell her about your website. Yeah, and so we you know, we have it clearly marked, and we've also gone as far as I know there's a large alpha gal population out there too. My daughter, all of our yeah, all of our smokers are individual proteins. So our chicken smoker only does protein or poultry, our pork smoker only does pork. That's great. Our you know, brisket smoker only does that. Well, it there's it's so many, it's multifaceted in the sense that, hey, yeah, we're we become safe because we're we're not doing cross-contamination uh with that, but you know, for religious preferences in the same sense. Or, you know, for but then we can truly dial in the cook. So we know exactly what goes into this smoker and what this smoker does with this much meat. So that it becomes so replicable that you get the exact same thing every time. If we're having to change the temperature and the dials on everything every time, chances of us screwing something up go way through the reef. And I mean, it it it not that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen very often.
SPEAKER_01:So you talk about dialing in. Yeah. Is there guidance on your website or is there a person you can talk to? Like I could picture, hey, if I want to work out and build muscle, I might want a certain type of food. If I want to lose weight, I might want a certain type of food. If I'm on one of those uh semi-glutide shots and I'm losing weight, but I want to make sure I have protein intake, like that might be a different meal.
SPEAKER_00:Like, is there guidance to we get your and so that's where I come in a lot is like if you're messaging our Facebook or Instagram, you're gonna, you know, if we'll we have our generic responses that we send out because we get a lot, but I have people that monitor it, and so any nutritional questions get kicked directly to me. And so if you are getting anything from now, I'm not a licensed trainer, I'm not licensed or anything, but I can absolutely direct people on where to go. Or how let's say they have bariatric surgery, you know, and they're they're being very particular because their doctors recommend four ounces of meat plus a half cup of this and a half cup of that. Well, we do three ounces of meat, and so it it becomes a little complicated. So what I recommend people do is they split the meal and they buy, you know, our a half pound of chicken to go with it. Then you add two ounces of chicken to each meal, and so each meal becomes two. And so then that in itself falls into the metabolic research criteria, that falls into the bariatric criteria, you know, and then we we are very careful about our macros. And so we have our our basic label on our meals of says the fat, the calories, the sodium, all this stuff. But then we have the full everything broke down available on our websites and even farther than that in binders in our stores.
SPEAKER_01:I I think if you on your website, if you're proactively saying, hey, if you're on semiglutide right now and you're looking to up to you should look at meal seven, nine, and twelve. If you're a celiac, you should look at meal 11, 6, and 4. I think you can ab because people are people are more focused on the results of what can I eat versus the understanding the macros in a lot of people. Absolutely. So I think the easier you make that for a customer.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and that's we have our our meal plans broken down into that. I love it. And so that's we have our keto meal plans, which is our all our keto meals. We have our low-fat meal plans that are broken down to that. We have the the the we call it the fun times meal plan, where it's just the the kind of healthy meals, you know, or you know, but a lot of times when you're ordering for uh like a household, they want variety, they don't want to get the same thing. So we have the what I want it all meal plan, which is the entire 20 meals so that you and a lot of people just stick it all in the freezer and scrap.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But everyone, it doesn't matter. So what does that cost?
SPEAKER_00:The Alta if you want it. So you the all I want it all, I believe it's$159, but it's all 20 meals um plus the rack of ribs, plus all of our snack bites.
SPEAKER_01:$159 for 20 meals. Ish. I mean, if I we go to Ruth Chris for dinner.$28 a meal. I mean, so it's like I said, if you save like$28, I think is what our to me. I think of my daughter and her dietary restrictions. I think of my son Max and his working out and really caring about everybody. And then I think about my wife who's got food allergies and different things. Like, I just feel like there's so much to offer. Like, what's the website?
SPEAKER_00:It's cleancooking.com. But it's C-L-E-A-N-C-O-O-K-I-N.com because you know it's Arkansas, we don't know how to spell it. So we don't g on everything. But uh it's that's kind of the joke. Or Facebook is Stews Clean Cooking. We're also on Instagram. Um, I believe we have a TikTok and an X or something like that.
SPEAKER_01:So business is good.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, it's fair. We're we're up uh 13 or 14% net this year.
SPEAKER_01:Well, between Queen and B and being on this podcast, I mean you're about to go up 140%. It's gonna be fantastic. Right, it's gonna be fantastic. You may not be able to have enough supply for all the demand. Let me ask you a question. Hope so. Let me ask you a question around that. Yeah. If a because I see when I go into even a Walmart, more and more it's about grab and go, it's about convenience, it's about Tupperwares in the front of the store where you can grab it with a drink and you're in and out. Yes, sir. Is there a scalability option down the road where, hey, you know what? If if Harps or if this place or if that place wants to put us in, we have the capacity to do that.
SPEAKER_00:So we do. Um, we're working on right now, we don't have a USDA license. Okay. And so that that becomes our problem is like a lot of these big companies have made it, they they implement things on themselves, and the processes they have, it there's HASA plans, is what it's called. It's uh basically you it's not the USDA is not a top-down rule. You basically prove that it's safe, and you have to have the every critical control point documented, labeled, and but you have to we don't have the capacity to have extra people on staff right now to simply do paperwork and simply do the inspections and run the we don't have the lab analysis stuff. And so we've we've basically we're a a a a restaurant, and so that's how we've decided to go, but it also keeps it much more affordable so that we can keep our meals at$6.99.
SPEAKER_01:But it's frustrating because it really serves in a lot of cases as a barrier to entry. Absolutely. People who are just just doing clean and simple and easy, but they add complication and all of a sudden it becomes quite.
SPEAKER_00:I can't take snap. That's the most infuriating thing. Like, this is the food that people need to be eating that's healthy, and I can't qualify for it, but they can go buy a Coke and a Snickers and a all that stuff. It's because I don't carry the raw commodities, I don't carry Bryce and beans and stuff in my store. This was the perception I had I hadn't been in before.
SPEAKER_01:So the first thing I'm thinking is it's gonna be super expensive, and it's absolutely not very affordable. Then I'm like, the food's not gonna be great. Food was amazing. Like for me, you have my this is my question to heat it up for a microwave. Yeah, I would absolutely eat that for a lot. All of that if you had said to me, like I and again, having bought frozen meals at uh Walmart or trying different diet things that I've done in the past, absolutely have done it and been miserable eating them. This is this is great. But my commitment is uh are you open every day?
SPEAKER_00:Monday? Monday through Saturday. Hours? Uh 10 to 6, Monday through Friday, 10 to 4 on Saturdays.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, here's my commitment. And and I we say this on a podcast, we're gonna go here, and most of the time we all, it's for viewers and clicks, but I'm coming Monday. Yeah, I'm gonna buy all my lunch next week. I'm gonna keep it in my freezer at work. Because I go out for lunch every day, yeah, but I always end up making not the best choices. I don't do the kind of, I do the oh, I'm just driving past raising canes. No offense to raising canes, but I'm I'm eating it on the run, I got sauce all over my like on top of that, Josh is notoriously cheap. So the fact is he's gonna be 70. Saving a lot of money versus the 15 you're getting from the drive-through. I I'll make the same commitment. Uh I I'm gonna pick up a few of these for for my son Max, particularly, but also let Mary Kate and Corey know. What are what what can we get in terms of is there a uh their B team podcast? Hey, come in and mention the B team. We'll give you, you know, a a dollar off.
SPEAKER_00:Why don't we you mention the B team, we'll throw in a snack bites with your order. So there you can the B team bites. By the way, these were good too.
SPEAKER_01:Exclusive B Team opportunity for all our rabid listeners. Yeah. A free, what what is this? Free snack bite. A free snack bite with the purchase of uh of a meal if you mention the B Team Podcast. Yeah. I love it. So yeah, absolutely. That'll be great. Uh last question I have for you. Uh do you have for like the the unhealthy eaters? Like, do you have like healthy chips or do you have healthy snacks or things that people pick up, or is it limited to it's kind of limited to this.
SPEAKER_00:We do the meats, though. That's like for people that like, ah, I don't want all that other stuff with it. We do the brisket by the half pound, we do the chicken by the half pound, pork by the half pound. We have two different types of chicken with it, but it's all smoked, and everybody is like, oh, that chicken's gonna multiply in my mouth. Because you do chicken breasts, it usually turns to sawdust in your mouth. That it ours doesn't, so because we brine all our own stuff and it we like it to be juicy, we need it to work. Um, my my big thing is those racks of ribs though, the unicorn ribs. Uh, I'm a fan of fall off the bone ribs. Like they they if if you I know they got the KCBV where you bite into it and it shows the teeth marks, and it's I'm like, I want to like I want annihilated, fall apart, we call them forking good ribs. Forking goods. Forking good ribs, and uh they're unicorn ribs because they're magically delicious. And uh, but so we have the heat and eat ribs for$24.99, it's 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Comes out, they're unsauced. So if you are keto or whatever, you can add whatever sauce you want, but they're super good. They got our own rib, our own rub on them. And or you when they come out screaming hot, you just put sauce on it, they're hot enough they'll glaze themselves. Now, the does the label say gluten-free or acyliceliac or something or you know, without the certifications, we can't say it. Now, I how we word it is contains gluten. Um, and so we'll have an asterisk on there that says this contains gluten because gluten-free is a certification. Ah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So if my daughter was gluten-free and I brought one of these home and it says contains gluten, she can't have it. It doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. She's good. Yeah, so basically she can't have the stughetti, which is the number 17, I believe. The the Stugetti. Yeah. I have a graphic designer. What about the Stugats?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We have well, yeah, I also have the Stu Special, uh, which is basically the Steven special at the Mexican restaurants. Um, so but we have you know the the the brisket mac, we have the smoke 2.0, the steughetti, and then that number 14, it has this has the barley contains barley gluten. But those are the four that have gluten. Besides that, they don't so if I brought home the chicken swish, my daughter can eat this. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So thanks for coming in. Uh, anybody that has not been there, including myself, I will be a customer. With a trip. It's yeah, it's gonna be fantastic. Definitely worth a trip. Yes. Man, thank you guys for that. Thank you so much. Really, really good stuff. Thanks for coming in. Absolutely. Maybe Zimes.