Hi, we are Chris & Molly Ohlsen. Back in 2003, we founded Ohlsen Foods to offer children at local schools a delicious, nutritious hot lunch delivered directly to campus throughout the school year.
Our children were both attending a local elementary school and we were doing what most parent have to do every day – packing a lunch for our children, while trying to juggle getting everybody dressed, out the door and into the car on time for drop off. Both of us were raised in families that cooked a fresh, balanced meal for dinner each day, and we did the same for our young family. Some days, our daughter & son would ask if they could bring the leftovers from the day before as their lunch. One day, we realized that we weren’t alone at our school and that there were many schools in the county that didn’t have a campus cafeteria to offer hot lunches to their students. This lead to a little bit of research, followed by consulting with a dietician and ending with a business plan to offer hot lunches in insulated lunch boxes delivered directly to campus shortly before mealtime for students to enjoy. We rented a nearby kitchen and started offering lunches at our children’s school. Many of the meals we offer for lunch have evolved from family recipes. Over the years we organically grew our business, as other school’s found out what we were offering. We have served private schools, public schools, charter schools and the county’s Head Start preschool programs. See our School Lunch page for the schools we currently work with.
After several years in business using our rented kitchen, we realized that we needed a space we could call our own. We found a vacant warehouse and took a gamble to design and build our own commercial kitchen. Today, we have a 1,900+ sf licensed commercial kitchen, built to our specification.
With the amazingly talented staff we have working for us, we are currently offering lunches at five local schools. We prepare each meal on a daily basis and shortly before lunch is served, we pull our entrees from the oven, load them into reusable food safe containers and pop them into the children’s individual insulated lunch boxes. Each day, we join our staff in delivering the lunches to the campuses we serve. After lunch, we collect the lunch boxes and bring them back to our kitchen to empty, sanitize and prepare for the following day.
We see our business as having two different missions:
- Offering families a delicious, nutritious meal at an affordable price delivered directly to their child’s school and simplifying the morning family routine.
- Relieving schools from the burden of managing a lunch program. As an added benefit, helping to keep the campuses free from the waste of takeout or disposable food containers and other lunch trash.
We also like to support other people looking for a commercial kitchen to start their own local small business, sharing their love for food with our community. Over the years, we have helped provide a space for caterers, wedding cake bakers, non-profits, retail bake shops and evening cooking classes. If you are interested in exploring our kitchen, please take a look at our rental page.