WHY HOMEGROWN
HOME COOKING IS PERSONAL.
Homegrown Foods started with a pretty simple idea: being busy shouldn’t mean giving up the food you actually want to eat.
Before I had kids, I thought nothing of running to several stores to find just the right ingredients for dinner. Then life got busy, and going to even one store could be a challenge.
My standards hadn’t changed. My available time had.
So I created Homegrown Foods to do the running around for you. We find the ingredients, plan the meals, make the sauces and marinades, and measure everything out.
You get to come home and cook.
INGREDIENTS
I’M NOT PICKY. I JUST HAVE A LOW TOLERANCE FOR BAD FOOD.
A ripe summer tomato and crisp cucumber barely need a recipe. Great pasta has texture and flavor all its own.
Start with really good ingredients, and you’re already halfway to a really great plate of food.
That’s why we go looking for them — from local farms and farmers markets to specialty grocers carrying the authentic ingredients a recipe deserves. We choose fresh, organic and locally grown whenever possible, along with thoughtfully raised meats and ingredients made with integrity.
Could we make our lives easier by ordering everything from one giant supplier?
Absolutely.
But easier isn’t always better.
RECIPES
THE BEST RECIPES ARE THE DOG-EARED ONES.
Great recipes are traded, treasured, inherited, discovered, adapted — and cooked again and again.
That’s the spirit behind our menus. We cook family recipes, traditional dishes, discoveries from great chefs and cuisines around the world, and the things I’ve tinkered with until they’re exactly the way I want them.
And we let the seasons have a say. Summer brings tomatoes, sweet corn and basil. Cooler weather brings squash, braises and comfort foods we wait all year to eat again.
The menu should follow the food — not the other way around.
And sometimes we put lobster rolls on the menu simply because lobster rolls are awesome.
FARMS & PRODUCERS
FARMERS ARE THE STEWARDS OF OUR SOIL, AIR AND WATER.
Organic. Grass-fed. Pasture-raised. Local.
Those labels matter. But integrity is bigger than a label.
The farms we work with care for their animals and the health of their land — from restoring native grasses to maintaining biodiversity and healthy soil. We choose partners who think beyond this year’s harvest to what they’ll leave behind.
Farm → Homegrown → home.
We’re one small connection between nearby farms and the people eating their food. Enough of those small connections create something bigger:
A strong, lasting local food system.
SUSTAINABILITY
BEING A FRIEND TO THE PLANET MEANS EXTRA EFFORT.
If we expect the people growing our food to be responsible stewards, Homegrown has to be one, too.
We’ve spent years reducing the disposable plastics that come with meal kits — testing glassine bags and compostable containers, returning and reusing delivery materials, and looking for better alternatives wherever we can.
Some choices cost more. Some require more work. And there are still places where we haven’t found an alternative that works well enough.
We’re not perfect.
But knowing there’s a better way means making the effort to do better.
INDEPENDENT & HUMAN
WE’VE BEEN DOING THIS SINCE 2013.
Homegrown Foods started when meal kits were just beginning to arrive in the U.S. Since then, a lot has changed. Companies have grown, merged and disappeared.
We’re still here.
And we’re still independent, still planning menus in Minneapolis, and still packing every meal kit by hand.
If you email us enough, we’ll probably get to know you. If you call, there’s a pretty good chance it’s me who answers. And the people planning and packing your kits take them home and cook them for their own households, too.
Talk about quality control.
Being independent means we get to make decisions based on what we believe is right for the food and the people we’re feeding.
Buy the better pasta. Support the good farmer. Use the compostable package. Make the sauce ourselves.
And for goodness’ sake, put lobster rolls on the menu.
Food is nourishment, but it should also be a source of pleasure.
I love to cook. I love good food.
And I want other people to eat good at home.
Aleks Till
Homegrown Foods