Certifiably Mighty: Peek Inside Our Kitchen
Certifiably Mighty: Peek Inside Our Kitchen
By: Executive Chef Stefano Marzano
Our top priority at MightyMeals is providing our customers with the freshest, locally sourced, high-quality food. That means making sure our kitchen is one of the best in the business. I’m Stefano Marzano, one of the founders of MightyMeals and the Executive Chef. I’m excited to give you the inside scoop on what sets MightyMeals apart from the rest!
A Mighty Controlled Environment
From start to finish, everything at MightyMeals happens under one roof. We locally source all of our ingredients which never leaves our 37°F refrigerated prep room. All of our ingredients are cut, prepped, bagged, and packaged in the refrigerated prep room. This is something that makes us unique in comparison to our competitors; a lot of companies do not take the same safety precautions that we do at MightyMeals.
A Mighty Cooking Process Instead of a standard oven, we use a combination oven that uses an air-to-steam method of cooking. This allows us to bring the food up to its proper cooking temperature while creating and controlling the moisture and humidity levels. For example, we can roast a chicken to perfection, ensuring it is extra tender and delicious in this controlled combination oven. When cooking is complete, the blast chiller takes the food’s temperature down to 38℉ in less than 90 minutes. In general, the faster you cook and cool the food, the longer the food will last. It’s why our meals always taste fresh!
A Mighty International Certification MightyMeals’ facility is AIB Certified, which is an internationally recognized food safety certification. They truly set the standard for food quality and safety. The AIB comes to our kitchen and inspects everything according to their 150-page guideline of standards. We are also on the “Best Facilities” list for the Fairfax County Health Department, in terms of overall cleanliness. We follow USDA guidelines, and our managers perform uniform checks to monitor and approve sanitation. We are adamant about logging everything, every step of the way. We have HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) logs on the temperature that our food is cooked at, as well as the temperature it was chilled at. We log when something comes out of the oven, and again when it comes out of the blast chiller. We also have logs on the flow chart of the facility from the moment a food item is delivered from a distributor, in order to prevent cross contamination.
A Mighty Ancestry Being born and raised in the restaurant industry, food safety and kitchen sanitation practices have been ingrained in me since I was a young boy. My family owned Famous Luigi’s Pizzeria from 1942-2013, and my first job at age 12 was to help bus tables. At age 15, I started working in the kitchen. I was taught that, as chefs, we have a huge responsibility to our customers who trust and believe that we are preparing them meals made with utmost care. Now that I own my own business, this sense of responsibility to the consumer is even stronger. I am beyond proud of each of our employees’ continued commitments to making sure nothing compromises the quality of our food. Don’t take my word for it! Use code TRYUS and try our food for yourself! My personal favorites are the lasagna and basil pesto chicken. Mangia Mangia!