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Key Takeaways Andy and Rachel Berliner are the husband-wife team behind Amy’s Kitchen, a frozen meal company.
Amy’s Kitchen began as a personal solution 38 years ago when Rachel was on bed rest during pregnancy and Andy couldn’t find any tasty, organic frozen meals at natural food stores.
Over nearly four decades, Amy’s has expanded to $1 billion in annual retail sales, with products in 57,000 U.S. grocery stores.
Amy’s Kitchen frozen meals began 38 years ago, when Rachel Berliner was pregnant with her daughter Amy, who the brand is named after. In the last few months of her pregnancy, the doctor said Rachel should stay in bed and stop doing housework or cooking. So Rachel tasked her husband, Andy, with making dinner.
“I went to a natural food store because we always ate organic, and I didn’t know how to cook,” Andy tells Entrepreneur in a new interview. “I bought a few things, and they were horrible. So that was a big part of our inspiration to start.”
Walk into the frozen aisle of any Whole Foods, Target or Walmart, and you’re sure to spot Amy’s frozen meals on the shelf. However, most shoppers are unaware that Amy’s only serves vegetarian meals — there’s nothing on the packaging to give away the secret.
“We’re a vegetarian company, so we have to make products that anybody would like, whether they are vegetarian or not,” Rachel says. “We never put vegetarian on the box because we don’t want to send people away who are not vegetarians.”
The promise of serving organic, vegetarian meals is important to the Berliners. The husband-wife duo modeled Amy’s after their own lifestyle, the way they ate. Over the years, their company has grown, despite the fact that they haven’t advertised.
“We actually sell more entrees than the biggest brands,” Andy says. “Amy’s is the number one entree brand now in two of the largest retailers in the country. We’re in 57,000 grocery stores now.”
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