Santa Barbara-based Business Delivers Good Food to Your Door - KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News

Santa Barbara-based Business Delivers Good Food to Your Door

02.09.10

SANTA BARBARA - People who are busy often head for the fast food drive-thru when on-the-go.

But a small Central Coast company is working to make sure fresh and organic food is just as easily accessible.

For the team of Gary Douville and Kim Lyons, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are replete with delicious food, and pressure.

They race to lunch time, because, for them, that's business time.

The two-person health pioneers, along with a handful of helpers, deliver fresh, organic, and locally sourced meals to busy professionals.

Kim Lyons, Co-founder of Organic Living Santa Barbara says, "We really want to encourage people to eat locally, and show them that all the food they need grows right here in their backyard."

Co-founder Gary Douville explains what gave him impetus to start the venture: "We have Farmers' Markets in Goleta, Santa Barbara, and I just don't have the time to go and pick up the produce and prepare lunches. And so I really designed this whole service around busy professionals."

The co-founders of "Organic Living Santa Barbara" shop the area Farmers Markets and then use what's organic, fresh, local, and in-season to create and cook a variety of lunches for people who are on-the-go.

In addition to adding flavor to many peoples' days, the delivery service adds variety.

Douville elaborates: "Our service is based around what we've termed the 'surprise meal model', and so there's no menu. And we're trying to kind of force the variety and to force different vitamins and different ingredients that some people wouldn't otherwise eat."

Lyons adds, "I think half the people that I served spaghetti squash to have never had it before. They're like oh, spaghetti squash? I've never even heard of it!"

But there's not just spaghetti squash. There are options for the hungriest of meat-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans.

We found one customer who's ordering vegetarian dishes for fun.

Matthew Brooke read his lunch label aloud: "It's a vegetable stir-fry, with... mine's with Tempe. I get the vegetarian option. I'm not a vegetarian, but it's another effort to be healthy, you know. And it's got brown rice and spring rolls in it."

We asked him,"How does that sound to you?"

Brooke excitedly answered: "Wonderful."

For now, the meals are delivered only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, at $9 for a regular portion, and $11 for a large, or "high-activity", portion.

Just approaching five months into the door-to-door organic delivery service, Organic Living is growing on a weekly basis.

Lyons adds she's thankful for the workload, "The first week I was making lunch for ten people, and I was thinking 'Oh My!' We're gonna need more orders than that! And now, I mean, we've had a day when I was in there making 40."

Both Douville and Lyons are hopeful the need for fresh and local lunch delivery continues to grow organically.

Lyons says, "We're just reminding people of the community that they're a part of, and we are a community, wherever you live."

Organic Living Santa Barbara currently delivers to offices, homes, and schools in Goleta, Santa Barbara, and Montecito, but the owners are hoping to expand as the need grows.

For more information on Organic Living SB, click here.