Fitlife Foods takes healthy eating to new heights

It may be dwarfed by the truly amazonian Amazon fulfillment center across the street, but Fitlife Foods' expanded culinary center in a brand-new 100,000-square-foot facility in Plant City represents a new phase in CEO David Osterweil's plan to get Tampa Bay eating right. What is now the leading Southeastern independent retailer of healthy, fresh-prepared meals has experienced meteoric growth since its debut in 2011.

Osterweil is not the only former Outback executive who has gone on to launch dynamic new culinary concepts: Chris Sullivan has Carmel Kitchen, Bob Basham is going great guns with PDQ, Carl Sahlsten fired up the Red Elephant Cafe (although a Tampa location recently closed) and Ben Novello and Jim Pollard quenched a powerful thirst with World of Beer. We spent a little time talking to Osterweil about the commissary kitchen that will open in August in Central Florida Development's County Line Commerce Center, Fitlife's more than 60 made-from-scratch meal options, and that this South Tampa native's best marathon time (3 hours, 16 minutes) was bested by his wife, Laura.

The last time we spoke you were gearing up to be one of the vendors for the Republican National Convention in Tampa. How has Fitlife evolved since then?

The RNC was a great opportunity for our company to grow up real fast. We opened two stores in that first year in South Tampa and Carrollwood, then in 2011 we opened one in Countryside as well as doing the RNC. In 2013 we opened in St. Petersburg and on South Howard in Tampa. In 2014 we opened in Brandon. Earlier this year we opened a kiosk in the Bank of America plaza in Tampa and we're looking at a number of additional locations right now. There's definitely work going on to take Fitlife Foods regional or national. There's a lot of excitement around the brand.

Where did the idea for the business come from?

Back in 2009 — I was working at Outback then — my wife and I went up to the Berkshires. We went to Canyon Ranch and I wanted to bring back this food that you experience on vacation at a health and fitness resort. The kind of recipes you see in Runner's World or Men's Health — who has time for that? I have a child; I work; my wife works. I don't have time to make this stuff. (It was) healthy food that's not tofu and sprouts. There's the stereotypical notion of what people think of as healthy food, and I wanted to break down those barriers.

Healthy food is the mantra for so many restaurants now. Has the competition gotten steeper in the past couple years?

I would say that in our space a lot of places live in the halo of health, but they are using tons of oil and sodium. And restaurants are still focused on selling a single meal — that's not what we're selling. If our customers weren't shopping with us they'd be shopping at the grocery store. We're offering 39 original sauces, 13 original spice blends. We're doing enchiladas, chicken tacos, miso salmon. We told our head chef Andrew Ruga, who used to be at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, these dishes have to have five to six days of shelf life and, oh, by the way, you have to be able to put them in the microwave and have them come out tasting great.

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When people walk in they look and see this bank of refrigerators. We take them on a store tour. We give them the story behind the food: In our brownies we're putting dried plums, in the mac and cheese there are carrots and grains.

Do people use Fitlife Foods as a diet?

We're not a silver bullet, but you will lose weight over the course of three or six months. Our best customers are people who have come to us for four years, who don't get stuck in trap meals. We work the opposite of the restaurant business. Our busiest days are Sunday and Monday: You're thinking about your amazingly indulgent weekend and that's where Fitlife comes in, to get you back on track.

Your Plant City kitchen is expected to generate more than 100 jobs and several million dollars in capital investment in eastern Hillsborough County over the next few years. What will happen there?

We have a number of different groups on our team. There's the culinary team (with our butcher and prep team), then our sauce and spice team, then our group that puts the meals together. There's a whole logistics component to what we do, in getting the food out to stores. The consistency and precision is easier in central kitchen. We're doing in the tens of thousands of plates per week.

What does the future hold for the company?

We're part of the winning bid at the airport, where we're going to focus on our wraps and salads and cold snacks. And we've started to get into different areas: We're in Tampa General Hospital, Health and Wellness Center at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, Nutrition Smart in Wesley Chapel, and we're looking at other delivery options and different initiatives to get our product out there. The whole goal is to give people their daily allowance of awesomeness.

Contact Laura Reiley at lreiley@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2293. Follow @lreiley on Twitter.