Our Sustainability Goals
At Performance Kitchen®, sustainability is very important to us, and we are committed to continually improve upon our goals each year. Our primary areas of focus are outlined below, based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Zero Hunger
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), nearly 1 in 10 people living in the United States lack consistent access to enough food for active, healthy living1, and each year nearly 119 billion pounds of food goes uneaten2. That works out to 130 billion meals and nearly $408 billion in wasted food every year. Per data compiled by the United Nations (UN), more than 1 in 3 people worldwide struggle with moderate to severe food insecurity, and they project that in 2030, more than 600 million people worldwide will face hunger regularly.
By partnering with major US insurance companies, Performance Kitchen® provides handcrafted, nutritious meals at no charge to the consumer to tens of thousands of individuals each year--many of them food insecure--throughout the US. To date, we have also donated over 200,000 meals to charities primarily concentrated in Florida and the Pacific Northwest. To extend shelf life and fight food waste, we freeze our meals immediately after preparing, cooking and portioning ingredients to ensure that we lock in peak nutrition. Thanks to nature’s preservative (extreme low temperatures), our meals made from wholesome, almost exclusively fresh ingredients will last 24 months once frozen, ensuring that any food waste of PK products is minimal.
Good Health & Well-being
At Performance Kitchen®, our mission statement is “to empower people to live life to the fullest.” Our Medically Tailored Meals (MTMs) are designed by a team of dietitians, doctors and chefs that work together to pack as much nutrition and flavor into our meals as possible. To make our meals accessible to as many people as possible, we also endeavor to offer a menu with meals which represent many cultures and peoples across the globe. Research suggests that eating 10 or more Medically Tailored Meals each week will result in significantly fewer hospital admissions and overall lower healthcare costs3,4. According to a study from the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, it is estimated that eating 10 MTMs per week for 8 months per year could decrease US healthcare costs by an average of $2,155 per person each year (after subtracting the cost of the meals!)4. To our consumers, all of this may translate to fewer symptoms, less illness, and lower overall symptom severity for people with, or at risk for, common chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and/or obesity5. Less time feeling sick means less time in the hospital, more time spent at home, and a better overall quality of life.
What makes a Performance Kitchen® Medically Tailored Meal? Using only high-quality proteins, produce and other ingredients, we currently offer over 60 culturally diverse recipes that are not only sure to please, but which also meet the specific requirements of a variety of different medical conditions and dietary preferences. We place strict limits on what contemporary nutrition science suggests is correlated with poor health (such as sodium, added sugar and saturated fat), and emphasize ingredients most correlated with the opposite (like lean protein, low-fat dairy, whole-grains, healthy fats, and a variety of colorful, nutritious vegetables).
Climate Action and Sustainable Production and Consumption Patterns
The UN urges everyone to do their part to combat climate change and its impacts, and the greatest opportunity to make a difference is with companies that manufacture physical goods. For this reason, Performance Kitchen® uses meal trays and packaging that are almost entirely made from biodegradable paper and other materials, and we’re currently exploring all available options to switch to 100% compostable materials. Our paperboard sleeves and cartons are all recyclable—simply trim or tear away any adhesive label, then add it to the rest of your recycling. The film used to seal our trays can also be recycled once cleaned and dried.
Because Performance Kitchen® delivers tens of thousands of packages each year to our consumers’ homes, we are always trying to minimize our use of coolant and packaging. It’s crucial that we strike the balance of using just enough dry ice or frozen gel packs to keep meals frozen and food-safe without being wasteful. According to statistics from the UN, the average person wastes over 260 pounds of food every year. Thanks to the frozen shelf life of our prepared meals being 24 months, we’re able to reduce any wasted food (and its associated packaging) to an absolute minimum.
Life Below Water
Oceans represent the planet’s largest ecosystem, and Performance Kitchen® is committed to using only sustainably sourced seafood. With guidance from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we remain vigilant to ensure that we always use ocean products responsibly.
Life on Land
The UN stresses the importance of protecting forests and land-based ecosystems. This can only be accomplished by using these natural resources responsibly and sustainably, which will help combat serious issues such as land degradation, loss of biodiversity, as well as desertification (i.e., green, lush and fertile areas becoming barren and non-productive). All Performance Kitchen® meat and poultry ingredients are produced without the use of antibiotics (which can disrupt fragile local ecosystems), and the raw materials used to produce our cardboard packaging come only from companies that can provide a chain of custody report proving it was sourced sustainably.
Paperboard (used to produce our sleeves and cartons) is easily recycled, and our paperboard meal sleeves are made by a company which belongs to the Paperboard Packaging Council (PPC). They are committed to adopting the highest standards of sustainable operations and use a variety of paperboard in our sleeves, including some made from 100% recycled materials. Even when not using 100% post-consumer materials, the PPC states, “Virtually all virgin paperboard consumed in the United States today comes from ‘tree farms’ where trees are planted, harvested and replanted specifically for this end use.” Performance Kitchen® sleeves feature soy-based printing inks and water-based protective coating, as well as water-based adhesive to glue individual pieces together.
Similarly, our paperboard cartons meet multiple environmental certifications, including those from the Forestry Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Our paperboard partners strive to minimize waste, and one of their methods involves taking used paperboard from other factories and individual homes, re-pulping it, then transforming that pulp into new paperboard and processing it to meet customer needs. They have specific goals to reduce energy and water use and are working hard to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and landfill waste. Continual improvement is of paramount importance to Performance Kitchen® and all our manufacturing partners, and we look forward to sharing our future developments in sustainability.
Citations
- Household Food Security in the United States. US Department of Agriculture. https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=104655
- ReFED Food Waste Monitor. ReFED.org
- Berkowitz SA, Terranova J, Randall L, Cranston K, Waters DB, Hsu J. Association Between Receipt of a Medically Tailored Meal Program and Health Care Use. JAMA Intern Med. 2019;179(6):786–793. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.0198
- Hager K, Cudhea FP, Wong JB, et al. Association of National Expansion of Insurance Coverage of Medically Tailored Meals With Estimated Hospitalizations and Health Care Expenditures in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(10):e2236898. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.36898
- Gurvey J, Rand K, Daugherty S, Dinger C, Schmeling J, Laverty N. Examining health care costs among MANNA clients and a comparison group. J Prim Care Community Health. 2013 Oct;4(4):311-7. doi: 10.1177/2150131913490737. Epub 2013 Jun 3. PMID: 23799677