Health-focused chain began closing units last year
My Fit Foods, which last year began shuttering its more than 50 units in five states, closed all of its remaining locations over the past week.
The Austin, Texas-based company, which provided healthful packaged meals, posted a notice on its website that said, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of all our stores. We know that you have depended upon us to support your healthy habits, and we are deeply story for the inconvenience.”
My Fit Foods, which was founded in 2006, in Houston, shuttered locations in Austin, Dallas and Houston over the weekend, following closures earlier last week in Arizona, and last October in Chicago.
Calls to the company were referred to an email address, and the company did not respond to emailed questions by press time.
The landlord at the Preston Road and Royal Lane location in Dallas was changing locks on Monday and posting a “lock-out” notice that said the tenant’s monthly rent was delinquent.
The prepared healthful meals segment has seen growth and increased competition in the past several years as supermarkets also expanded their ready-to-eat offerings.
Like My Fit Foods, competitor Fitness Food Holdings Inc., parent to the Snap Kitchen chain, which is also based in Austin, was expanding into supermarket channels like Whole Foods for distribution, in addition to its own standalone retail stores. Last March, Snap Kitchen received an additional investment from private-equity firm L Catterton.
Snap Kitchen has 48 units in five cities, including Austin, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Philadelphia.
In September, My Fit Foods announced a new investment by the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“The investment will support My Fit Foods' growth strategy to pursue partnerships with the nation's premier grocery retailers,” the company said in a press release at the time.
The Farm Bureau, a national federation of farmers and ranchers, joined Los Angeles-based Marlin Equity Partners, which took a stake in My Fit Foods in July 2016, as investors in the Austin-based healthful-meals concept.
TSG Consumer Partners LLC, which had invested in My Fit Foods in January 2013, had sold its interest, a spokesperson said at the time.
David Goronkin, CEO of My Fit Foods at the time, said the Farm Bureau investment “positions us to easily expand the availability of My Fit Foods, while working directly with the American farming community."
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