NEVADA YETTER

WHEN NEVADA YETTER enrolled in NMC’s Great Lakes Culinary Institute as a step toward her goal of opening a restaurant in her native Traverse City, her future business prospects seemed rosy.

Then came COVID-19.

Indoor dining rooms closed. Restaurants pivoted to curbside pickup and delivery. Menus turned into QR codes. “I knew I had to change my business plan,” says Yetter, 34. But she already knew how to pivot—in 2016, she had bought a farm
and since adopted a health-conscious, sustainable lifestyle, prioritizing her own diet and fitness.

Her ethos and education, not to mention a Business Development Certificate (also from NMC), led her to create Fresh Life Meal Prep, a meal kit subscription service. Fresh Life’s calling card is locally grown ingredients—Yetter’s aiming for 60 percent from her own half-acre garden—and macro-based menus, where customers choose their meals based on protein, carbs and fats per serving.

“They’re really conjoined, the farm and the meal-prep business,” Yetter says. “The whole point is fresh sustainable food, not bigbox. That’s what we’re trying to showcase.”

Yetter is as much an entrepreneur as she is a chef. Last year, Fresh Life won a pitch night at TC New Tech. (She bought a new fridge with the prize money.) She brims with ideas, including plans for a podcast, pop-up dinners on the farm, a petting zoo, on-farm classes such as foraging and canning, and even franchising the Fresh Life concept, which NMC is also advising.

“I feel like I’m ready for more,” she says. N

▶ Find out more or order online: freshlifemealprep.com