Healthy Meal Prep Store To Hold Grand Opening In Babylon

BABYLON, NY — Residents of Babylon now have more opportunities to eat healthier.

Redefine Meals, a Long Island healthy meal-prep company, will be celebrating its grand opening at its Babylon location on Tuesday at 2 p.m.

The store, located at 255 Deer Pk Avenue, offers prepared, portioned foods that fit different lifestyles, such as vegan, vegetarian, paleo, low carb, keto, dairy free, and "everything in between."

Jessica Fallica, vice president Redefine Meals, told Patch that all meals are "grab-and-go", and while customers can buy them in bulk, there is no purchase minimum. One can also order meals online and have them delivered.

"We add new menu items every week to keep things fun and fresh for our customers," Fallica said. "All of our ingredients are sourced, fresh, not frozen. So it's, it's pretty much like as if you made a homemade meal."

Co-founder Matthew Riss, 26, told Patch that he and childhood friend Mark Ciaburri started the business as college students in 2016. Both student athletes, they recognized an imbalance between their intense training and the nutrients their bodies needed.

"Mark and I were on the same soccer team together," said Riss. "We kind of learned from our experience as an athlete, how these athletes weren't being fed correctly."

Riss, who studied marketing at Stony Brook University, said that he and Ciaburri, who studied dietetics, at Buffalo State formed the perfect team for the business.

"I was the one that handled the branding, the sales, and the marketing," he said. "Mark was the recipe developer and did all of the research."

The duo started out cooking meals for Stony Brook University Athletics at the Stony Brook University Incubator at Calverton.

After their partnership quickly showed success with athletic teams, the friends discovered that their business was needed on a bigger scale.

"We learned that the problem was much bigger than just athletes — it's kind of everyone not eating correctly," he said. "So we turned into a company that appeals to everyone."

In August 2020, Redefine Meals opened its first physical store in Lake Grove. The business currently operates under 74 employees, and holds locations in Syosset, Bellmore, Commack, Port Jefferson Station, and Holbrook.

The Babylon site, which held a soft launch in July, is its seventh store.

"It's funny, because we started with almost nothing," Riss said. "We were so young and naive, which has helped us turn into the company we are now."

Riss said that Redefine Meals hopes to also work with Babylon athletics teams, to help provide proper nutrition to athletes.

"A big thing we try to do in communities that we work with is fundraise," he said. "(For example) we donated $1 of any sale from the first day to youth sports in Babylon."

The entrepreneurs hope to eventually expand Redefine Meals to Queens and areas of New York City. The business will also be opening a location in Patchogue this fall, Riss said.

"We're trying to become like, a staple in every community that we kind of join," he said.

Until then, Redefine Meals said they are happy to join the Babylon community. Riss also said he is excited to bring in longtime employee and Babylon resident, Frank Sharp, as a co-owner of the new location.

"We've seen such tremendous support from the local businesses and people that live in the village and visit often," Fallica said. "We're really excited to support the community outside of just the store."