Richard and Molly McCracken are still keeping people in shape — as far as food goes.
The McCrackens are owners of Memphis Kitchen Co-Op at 7946 Fischer Steel Road in Cordova. They also are owners of Amplified Meal Prep: healthy meals that can be purchased online at eatamplified.com and at the co-op’s Memphis Kitchen Co-Op Marketplace.
Amplified Meal Prep has been “going on about seven years now,” Richard says. The idea behind the food is to get people to eat “the Amplified way: maintain weight or weight loss.”
And just to give people a healthy body. “Eating healthy just has so many health benefits. That’s what we do.”
Richard, who was born in Chicago, and Molly, who is from Ohio, were college athletes. Richard went to University of Central Missouri, and Molly went to Morehead State University. “She was a gymnast and cheerleader, and I was a wrestler in college.”
Richard, who does the cooking, began helping in the kitchen when he was “a little kid.” His mom, K.C. Bryant, taught him. “We never bought ‘box’ anything. My mom made everything from scratch. She always needed help, so I would always help her in the kitchen.”
He made sloppy joes and “Heavenly Hamburger” — noodles and marinara with cream cheese and cheddar cheese on it. That’s one of “Mimi’s Meals,” which they carry online and at the market.
Richard continued to cook. “I cooked for all my teammates in college. That was just like meat and carbs. I wasn’t doing anything crazy.”
Being college athletes, he says, they tried to “eat pretty clean.”
Richard met Molly at WellWorX gym, where they both worked at the time. That’s also where Richard and a business partner began their Ultimate Foods business 10 years ago. It was the predecessor to Amplified Meal Prep. “We just wanted to create healthy fast food.”
“Nick’s Barbecue Bowl,” which included barbecued chicken and sweet potatoes, was one of their most popular bowls, he says.
He and Molly began Amplified Meal Prep seven years ago. “That started at my friends’ house. We were making meals for them.”
The co-op, which they opened three years ago in a 6,500 square-foot-building, is for people who don’t have room in their homes to make food in quantity. They now house 60 small businesses, Richard says.
Their commercial equipment includes eight convection ovens, eight standard ovens, four 10-burner stoves, two flat-top grills, a 30-quart and 60-quart mixer, food processors, a 24-by-14-foot walk-in cooler, a 32-by-7-foot walk-in display cooler, 50 prep tables, 120 storage shelves, and 40 feet of vent hood space. They also added a baker’s rotating rack oven, Richard says. “It’s a super cool oven.”
Recently, the McCrackens have been concentrating on catering. They previously did some catering, including weddings and for some Memphis Grizzlies players. “A little catering stuff here and there, but we never really
have put it out there that we actually
do catering.”
Their catering menu fare isn’t strictly for those who are health-conscious, Richard says. “We do everything. We can do the healthy all the way to deep Southern fried cooking.”
Healthy items would be “the fresh fruit and veggies. More lean cuts of meat and that kind of stuff. Not heavy lasagnas or your pastas with sauces, or anything Alfredo. We’re not going to do anything like that in the healthy catering. We’re going to keep it pretty clean, but still it’s going to be good.”
If someone doesn’t want the emphasis to be on healthy cooking, Richard says, “We can do fried chicken. We can do lasagna, chicken wings, any type of Italian, any type of Asian. Literally anything.”
They recently introduced a brand-new Amplified Meal Prep breakfast menu online and in the
co-op market. “We’ve switched out all the breakfasts. All the breakfasts are brand-new.”
And, he says, “We’ll have a new lunch and dinner menu in the next couple of weeks.”
Other new Amplified Meal Prep dishes included a seared tuna poke bowl. They also are offering new salads, including one with salmon, coconut rice, and mango, and a Santa Fe salad with Southwestern-seasoned chicken over Romaine lettuce, tortilla strips, a chipotle dressing, and tomato.
The “Amp Market Salad” consists of chicken, granola, blueberries, strawberries, and apples with “a tangy vinaigrette dressing.”
And their “Bang Bang” chicken salad is “chicken with our Bang Bang dressing. It’s like a sweet, spicy dressing over chicken with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and other goodies.”
Richard and Molly also are planning to get into shipping. They want to ship their Amplified Meal Prep meals regionally. “We want to ship to the Nashville area, the Atlanta area, and, hopefully, after that we can probably expand a little more.”
They will ship “everything that’s available online. They order and we just pack it up. Put cold packs in and send it to them.”
Michael Donahue