Coming up with a delicious dish is one thing. Adjusting its ingredients to meet nutritional requirements, preparing it in large quantities, and ensuring it retains its quality the next day is considerably more complicated. To mark World Food Day, which fell on October 16, we’re taking you behind the scenes at YES Krabičky to show you how our menu comes together—from the first recipe ideas to the finished meals.

From the chefs’ ideas to the final recipe

It all starts with chefs Radek Hasman and Daniel Bašta, who come up with ideas for new dishes. Radek Vítek then reviews their work and adjusts the recipes in terms of their nutritional composition. He looks not only at calorie content, but also at the balance of macronutrients and micronutrients, 

Each recipe therefore goes through a series of adjustments, during which the exact quantities of individual ingredients are determined and the nutritional values calculated. The result must be a meal that not only tastes good, but also fits into the overall concept of balanced eating.

Eight weeks with no repeats

The finished recipes are then used to create a menu for each day and week. Radek Vítek reviews the selection to ensure it is varied and nutritionally balanced.

The YES Krabičky menu consists of eight unique weeks, during which no dishes are repeated. The menu is planned about a month in advance, but even approved recipes are not set in stone. Ingredients or side dishes may be changed to reflect the seasons, and client feedback also plays an important role. If a dish receives a rating of less than four out of five stars, its recipe is adjusted or the dish is removed from the menu entirely.

A completely new menu is then created every six months.

Why aren’t some dishes suitable for meal prep boxes?

Not every recipe that works wonderfully in a restaurant is also suitable for meal prep boxes. In a restaurant, a dish is served immediately after it is prepared, whereas our meals have to withstand storage, transport, and reheating.

Some ingredients release water after a few hours, while others may change texture or turn bitter. The sheer volume of production is another challenge. A method that works when preparing a few portions may not be practical when cooking in large quantities.

That’s why recipe development takes into account not only the dish’s taste and nutritional composition, but also whether the meal will retain its quality, flavor, and texture until the customer is ready to enjoy it.

Every gram counts

A carefully formulated recipe would be pointless if the specified quantities of ingredients weren’t followed when portioning. That’s why every component of each meal is weighed out according to a predetermined gram amount as the boxes are filled. This ensures that the portions match the recipes and their calculated nutritional values.

What happens to the food after it’s cooked?

Proper handling of finished meals is also an important part of the production process. At YES Krabičky, we therefore use blast chilling technology to rapidly lower the temperature of freshly cooked food. This limits the time during which unwanted microorganisms can multiply in the food and slows down some of the processes that affect its properties.

The boxes are then sealed in a protective atmosphere using an inert gas. This helps limit the food’s contact with oxygen, thereby slowing oxidation processes that can cause unwanted changes in flavor, aroma, or color.

Combined with proper storage and maintaining the cold chain, these methods help preserve the desired quality of the meals until they are eaten.

A good meal begins long before the first bite

It starts with a carefully considered recipe, a thoughtful selection of ingredients, and the collaboration of people who understand both gastronomy and nutrition. Our goal is for all these steps to lead to one result: a varied, nutritionally balanced menu that not only meets the specified requirements, but above all tastes great.

Jan Punčochář has created a menu for Yes Krabičky. In our interview, we talked about Czech cuisine, his favorite ingredients, and why proper tomato sauce needs dried plums, gingerbread, and star anise.

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