Brian Lee talks to us about the healthy, nutritious offerings at Freshly Chopped, the business he founded with Andy Chen six years ago.
Tell us about the philosophy underpinning your mission to offer Dublin’s diners simple ways to incorporate healthy food choices into their day.
When we developed Freshly Chopped six years ago, my business partner Andy Chen and I were both going to the gym a lot, and we were frustrated at the lack of convenient, quick and good value nutrition available to us. We talked about this and so the seeds of Freshly Chopped were sown. I am very active in the gym, and I work hard on meal plans to make the most of my workouts. As a result, I wanted Freshly Chopped to be a place where people can find the exact food they need to fuel their lifestyle, whether it be rigorous or light.
We offer more than 90 ingredients, crisp lettuce selections, garden fresh vegetables and incredible salad dressings, providing a create-your-own-salad experience in a theatre of food. Full calories are counted for each salad, wrap and sandwich and we offer a delivery, collection, take-away and dine-in service, with fast meal service.
In just six years you’ve grown to 50 stores across Ireland and you also recently opened in Cyprus. How do you maintain consistency and quality across all locations?
Consistency of flavour is guaranteed, with all Freshly Chopped flavours created by a skilled team in central kitchens. Our staff and our franchisees are one of the biggest reasons for our success. We work hard to find franchisees we can trust to deliver a dependability of experience to our customers across our outlets. We look for strong leadership, a positive attitude and a strong work ethic in all our franchisees and our centralised training plans ensure that we have knowledgeable and friendly staff across all our stores.
Plant-based options are increasingly popular now. How does freshly Chopped reflect that in its menu offerings?
Many of our customers follow plant-based diets. Indeed, we are now seeing more and more people taking the decision to switch for purely health reasons, led by the example of athletes like Lionel Messi, Serena Williams, and Tom Brady. We have a wide selection of options to meet their needs, with most of our 90 ingredients being plant-based. Tofu is one of the richest plant-based sources of protein, as well as being rich in iron, potassium and calcium. Our Vegan Body Builder and Garden Tofu are big hits. Another delicious plant-based protein is falafel, which has plenty of fiber and our Lebanese Falafel is very popular.
What would you recommend from the Freshly Chopped menu for a person choosing for the first time to order takeaway food online for delivery?
The beauty of Freshly Chopped is that, because of the variety of ingredients, customers can have whatever they want. We have a create-your-own-salad option where you can choose one meat or other protein, three vegetables or cheese, your choice of greens and a dressing. Even within that you can choose to add an extra protein for a supplement or, if you like, you just choose five vegetables or cheeses and a dressing. It’s all up to you!
From our house salads I would recommend trying our Chicken Teriyaki with Asian greens, noodles, red onion, mange tout, cashew nuts and Oriental dressing. It’s delicious!
What’s your favourite item on the menu?
My favourite salad on the menu is Atomic Crunch, a healthy combination of turkey, roast sweet potato, brown rice, grated carrot, and spring onion with a choice of greens and Rebel Chili dressing. We recently opened a new flagship store in Smithfield and I’m loving kicking off the day there with a beetroot, turmeric or macha superfood latte. I’ll often eat dinner there too and I love our grilled chicken or steak protein board.
What else do you have in the works?
Over the last six years we have been inundated with requests to open in the UK, so the first wave of Freshly Chopped outlets will be opening shortly in Manchester. Our distinctive grass clad interior exudes freshness and will be an oasis from the hustle and bustle of modern life. We will also continue our expansion across Ireland.
You can now order Freshly Chopped for delivery to your home or office on the Just Eat app.
