PERSONAL CHEF SERVICE BUSINESS PLAN

I. Executive Summary

Company Description

Aureus Kitchen (Aureus, Latin for "golden") is a premium, subscription-based personal chef service launching in 2026 in the U.S. luxury wellness sector. We pair each household with a dedicated professional chef who handles meal planning, grocery shopping, in-home cooking, and cleanup, supported by a proprietary technology platform for personalization, scheduling, and client-chef matching. Our core offer combines high-end culinary expertise with nutrition-led programming and a tiered subscription model that drives recurring revenue and long-term retention. One-liner: premium chefs, personalized nutrition, effortless daily dining.

To operate, we recruit, vet, and onboard chefs; design individualized meal plans with registered-dietitian input; manage grocery procurement and logistics; and deliver in-home service plus customer support through the platform. We target affluent, time-constrained, health-conscious U.S. households (HNWI and upper-wealth households). Short-term goals: launch in two metro markets in H1 2026 and acquire 200 active subscribers in year one. Long-term goals: expand to 10 U.S. cities by 2029 and scale to 10,000 subscribers while maintaining quality and >85% retention. One-liner: scale a vetted-chef network to serve luxury wellness at home.

Problem

High-income households in major U.S. metro areas like San Francisco face a chronic time deficit that prevents consistent healthy eating; busy professionals and dual-income families rely on unhealthy takeout or repetitive home cooking because they lack time for meal planning, grocery shopping, and preparation.

Existing offerings—meal kits and similar services—still demand significant labor and cleanup and therefore fail to solve the core problem of time scarcity. There is also inadequate personalized culinary support for specific medical or dietary needs, including celiac disease and diabetes, leaving a gap in safe, convenient nutrition management.

Busy, health-conscious households need a time-free, medically tailored in-home meal solution that current options do not provide.

Solution

Affluent U.S. professionals and families face chronic time poverty that prevents consistent, healthy eating; takeout is often unhealthy and meal kits still require prep, cleanup, and lack the customization needed for allergies or medical diets. This gap causes stress and suboptimal health for people who value their time most.

Premium in-home personal chef service that runs the full culinary lifecycle—menu design, grocery procurement, in-kitchen meal preparation, plating, and cleanup—delivers fully customized, labor-free meals matched to dietary needs and schedules so clients get restaurant-grade nutrition at home without any household friction.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to elevate clients' lives by delivering seamless, personalized, health-focused chef-prepared meals in the comfort of their homes.

We reclaim time for busy individuals and families so they can focus on what matters while we manage nutrition with professional excellence, quality, and trust.

We commit to culinary innovation and accessibility, setting the standard for luxury in-home culinary services across the United States.

Key Success Factors

Success hinges on four measurable operational and financial milestones that drive service capacity, efficiency, margin, and viability.

• Recruit and retain 20.0 FTE personal chefs by 2030 to meet projected demand and capacity targets.
• Deploy a $40,000 client management platform to ensure operational efficiency and client satisfaction.
• Reduce CAC from $800 to $650 through disciplined marketing to preserve long-term profitability.
• Maintain strong partnerships with premium food suppliers to guarantee ingredient quality that supports premium pricing.
• Achieve breakeven in May 2027 to validate the subscription-based personal chef model.

Financial Summary

The financial model shows loss in Year 1 and rapid scale to strong EBITDA by Year 5, with breakeven targeted in May 2027 and a 28-month payback.

Financial requirements: maintain a minimum cash buffer of $462,000; breakeven expected May 2027 and payback in 28 months, delivering the stated ROE and IRR metrics to investors.

Overall outlook: the plan moves from an initial loss to strong profitability and positive stakeholder returns by Year 3.

Funding Requirements

The company needs $1,227,500 to fund product development, CAPEX, launch marketing, 2026 salaries for 7.0 FTEs, and a $462,000 working capital buffer to reach breakeven by May 2027.

Key financials: Year 1 EBITDA -$308,000; Year 5 EBITDA $8,079,000; breakeven May 2027; 28 months payback; chefs scale 3.0 to 26.0; Return on Equity 15.77; IRR 0.08.