“I always loved cooking, but I never thought I would do it professionally.”

Food was at the center of Isabel’s childhood. Her mother was both a chef and a food anthropologist, so meals were never just meals; they were lessons in culture, history and community. While heavily processed meals were becoming increasingly popular, her family took a different approach, eating vegetables from their garden and getting fresh milk from a nearby dairy farm.

Cooking was a natural part of life, and Isabel loved it. Yet watching professional kitchens up close convinced her that a culinary career was probably not for ger. “I could see that it’s a very hard, physically demanding profession,” she says. Instead, she pursued other interests, but food had a way of following her.

When she became a mother, like countless parents, she began thinking about food differently. It was no longer just about cooking. It was about nourishing a child while balancing work, family, and the countless demands of everyday life. At the same time, she noticed a common struggle among her friends with young children. “I could see that feeding their kids was a real source of stress.” Everyone wants their children to eat well, yet between work, commutes, school schedules and family responsibilities, preparing healthy meals every day often felt overwhelming. “So I thought, maybe I should cook for other people’s kids, because I really enjoy doing it.”

“It was initially my cousin and me, driving around and dropping meals off at people’s houses.”

In the beginning, Little Green Gourmets was little more than Isabel and her cousin cooking meals and delivering them around New York City. Long before meal delivery became commonplace, they loaded coolers into their cars and drove from neighborhood to neighborhood, dropping off fresh meals for busy families. Those early years became an invaluable testing ground. “It was an opportunity to really hammer out the philosophy and fine-tune what kids like, what they don’t, and why.”

The home-delivery business earned loyal customers, but growth was slow, and margins were thin. Isabel knew that if the company was going to survive, it needed a different path forward. At the time, Little Green Gourmets had a simple website, and few companies were offering anything similar. One day, a school in Long Island City came across the site and called looking for a lunch provider. “I was pretty clear that I needed that gig,” Isabel says. She won the account. Then another.

Later, while operating out of the Hot Bread Kitchen incubator, another unexpected opportunity arrived. A preschool director touring the facility happened to learn about Little Green Gourmets at precisely the moment her school was searching for a new lunch vendor. Once again, Isabel seized the opportunity. “Everybody talks about luck, and I agree that there’s always one piece of success that’s luck”.

Each new school brought more meals, more logistics, more employees, and greater operational complexity. Building the systems needed to support that growth became its own challenge. “Scaling is always hard”, she adds.

“Everybody wants their kids to eat well.”

Today, Little Green Gourmets prepares meals for schools throughout New York City, but Isabel still views the business through the eyes of a parent.

She understands picky eaters. She understands allergies. She understands the pressure parents place on themselves to get everything right. Over the years, she has learned that feeding children isn’t simply about nutrition. It’s deeply personal. Parents worry. Schools worry. Everyone wants children to be healthy, happy, and well cared for.

The menus are designed specifically for children, balancing nutrition with foods they will enjoy eating. Meals are prepared fresh and adapted to the realities of school schedules, classroom routines, dietary restrictions, and growing appetites. Behind every tray is years of listening, testing, refining, and learning.

One of the most rewarding discoveries has been how often children exceed adults’ expectations. Given the opportunity, kids are remarkably curious and often willing to try foods many people assume they will reject.

And after serving thousands upon thousands of meals, Isabel still finds joy in the same thing that inspired her from the beginning. What started as one mother’s attempt to solve a problem she saw all around her has grown into a company that helps thousands of families solve that same challenge every day. And like many successful businesses, it began with something simple: seeing a need, caring enough to address it, and having the courage to start small.