For the founder of Freshology—the high-end, low-cal gourmet food-delivery service favored by the famous—a little “sympathy weight” gained from impending fatherhood led him to a healthy-eating concept that proved pregnant with potential.
Entrepreneur Todd DeMann and his wife were looking to drop a few pounds after the birth of their son and tried a trendy meal provider but discovered the not-so-palatable truth: “The food just wasn’t very good,” he says. Intrigued by the notion of a gourmet, low-cal food-delivery service, he assembled a business plan, making top-quality but calorie-conscious meals the priority—five meals per day, delivered daily to customers’ doorsteps. With seed money from no less than Lee Iacocca and menus created by chefs trained at Patina, Spago and other elite eateries, an empire was launched. “I saw the junk that people peddle out there and was tired of hearing that you have to deprive yourself of a good meal when you want to lose weight,” says DeMann. “For me, a diet is not deprivation. It’s what you’re supposed to eat every day. You can eat healthfully, you can lose weight and you can enjoy it—that’s the concept behind Freshology.”
The DeManns lost weight (four and a half years later, he still eats the food daily, sampling menu items before they are mass-produced) and gained fans—most notably Jennifer Lopez, Ricki Lake, Vanessa Williams and several others.
Now DeMann is discussing a large-scale deal with a major TV network dance show, where the exhausting, calorie-burning steps have high-profile hoofers eager to have healthy meals simply handed to them. In fact, DeMann says, a good portion of his now-national clientele are as obsessed with the convenience of his service as they are with its calorie-consciousness. “These are people with $50,000 kitchens, and they don’t want to cook anymore,” he chuckles. “They love the idea of having meals delivered to their door. They don’t have to go shopping, and they know it’s going to be healthy food.”
