Photos: Lyfe Kitchen Debuts at Costco

Eating just got a little more affordable, healthy, tasty and convenient, the owners of the new Palo Alto restaurant Lyfe Kitchen hopes.

The restaurant, dedicated to healthy, affordable dining, introduced its chef-inspired retail products to 20 select locations throughout Northern California, including and  last week. It plans  to expand nationally.

Lyfe Kitchen founder Stephen Sidwell said the restaurant partnered with Costco because of the broad demographic that it serves. It hopes to expand into other markets like Safeway, Kroger, Whole Foods and others in the near future.

“We believe we can truly make a difference in the food industry,” Sidwell said. “You can have great tasting food that’s healthy and filling.”

The Lyfe Kitchen team took over two years to perfect recipes, said Sidwell. But first he had to assemble a world-class team of chefs, health experts and athletes, including Oprah’s former chef, Art Smith; former Golden State Warriors basketball player Derek Fisher; and New York Times bestseller and health director, Mark Hyman.

Lyfe soups, compared to others on store shelves typically laden with hundreds of grams of sodium and cream, have no more than 20 percent of the daily recommended intake of sodium.

“We’re not going to fall back on sodium for taste,” Sidwell said. Heading that effort is Chef John Mitchell, a Marin native who was a chef at Lark Creek Restaurant before spending ten years developing food production systems for Whole Foods' ready to eat and ready to cook products. 

Under Mitchell's hand, heavy creams and butter are replaced with almond milk to produce a creamy taste in the bisque. And the dishes are preservative-free, with ingredients that are all pronounceable. 

The cost of these products is $10.49 for bulk packages of six servings of soup, or $1.73 per serving.  

The restaurant has also been speaking with about stocking the retail market’s shelves with their products. They also plan to open an online store as well.

To leave a minimal footprint on the environment, Lyfe Kitchen also prides itself on its “green mission,” to reduce the amount of waste that remains after the meal. The packaging uses 70 percent less than average packaging and is all recyclable. The products in the Bay Area are produced in an industrial kitchen in Morgan Hill and source most of its ingredients locally.

Los Altos Patch Editor contributed to this report