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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]A[/dropcap] trip to Italy inspired a Denver resident to say arrivederci to her former life as an interior designer and begin delivering buon cibo, or good food in Italian, to busy locals who wanted fast, fresh meals.

Cibo Meals was inspired by Emily Green’s love of Italian culture. Before she began her home delivery business, Colorado-native Green worked as an interior designer in Denver and New York. Feeling burnt out, she followed her lifelong dream of traveling to Italy.

“I lived there for three months, and I speak some Italian,” Green said, who mentioned she still travels there yearly. Regarding naming her company, Cibo Meals, “the Italian influence and verbiage is pretty important to me,” she said.

Green started Cibo Meals in 2016, inspired by what she had learned about the culinary scene in Italy. “I had learned a lot about food and cooking . . . better ingredients, more organic, more natural meals when I was in Italy, and it lends itself to the idea,” she explained. She also said it appealed to her designer side since she gets to play with colors and texture. “Now I’m just designing meals for people.”

She also wanted to offer a healthful delivery option that didn’t still involve the client preparing the food on their own. “You’re still spending your time and energy to [make] the meals, and you have a mess in your kitchen afterwards, and then all of this horrible packaging you don’t know what to do with,” Green said. Cibo Meals offers a solution that is more convenient for customers, and is also more sustainable for the environment in comparison to other meal services. Meals are handed over in reusable glass jars that are stored in cooler bags.

“I like to say that I take my customers on a journey around the world with their taste buds.”

 

New clients receive a cooler bag for deliveries to be stored in, and they place the bags outside with the leftover freezer packs and the rinsed mason jars. As the new meals are delivered, the previous delivery’s jars and packs are picked up, so they can be reused.

Every Thursday, the internationally-themed meal options are shared on the website, and one of the two offerings is often gluten-free. The menu rotates weekly, with ingredient lists and recipe sources posted alongside the menu choices.

“I like to say that I take my customers on a journey around the world with their taste buds,” Green said. “It’s allowed them to be creative and be inspired by the cuisine.”

“One week I’ll do something Mediterranean, and the next week I’ll do something Asian . . . I try to use ingredients, spices, seasonings, oils, that are in line with whatever those meals are. They’re getting to try different grains and mixtures and combinations that they wouldn’t usually try,” Green said.

Although cannabis-infused dishes are not something that Cibo Meals is offering, the idea has presented itself, considering the green environment of Colorado. “I have toyed with the idea of using cannabis-infused oils, or doing some kind of seasoning,” said Green. “Right now, I leave that up to my customers, but I would say I have a pretty common interest in some of my customer base.”

Green said that because her business isn’t a subscription service, her orders can vary greatly each week. “I don’t think there’s any need to have subscriptions for your food.” The orders must be placed by Monday morning, and on Tuesday the orders are delivered in glass jars between 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. A pint-sized jar, or piccolo is $12 and a quart-sized jar is $20. The quart-sized serving can serve two, or three if served on the side to a protein. The meals can last two to three days in the fridge.

Dietary restrictions often can be accommodated, such as exclusion of some ingredients, but the meals are made in a shared kitchen space where peanuts and allergens are present.

Green’s service has also begun delivering lunches to workplaces, offering a healthy respite to those working at larger campuses like hospitals and colleges and can’t run out for lunch. “It’s really easy just to stick a fork in it and eat it,” she said.

Currently, Cibo Meals is Denver-based and can only deliver within a relatively close proximity.

 

cibomeals.com

 

 

 

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