We've all been there. You get home after a long day, stomach rumbling, but when you open the fridge there's nothing healthy or quick.
Looks like it's takeout or TV dinners again...
"72% of Americans cook less than two meals per week at home, but the prepared food industry is just not good," says Evie Fatz, founder and CEO of Cōpow Foods, a prepared-meal company operating out of a 5,000-square-foot distribution kitchen in Post Falls.
Cōpow is a self-coined portmanteau combining the first syllables of "colorful" and "powerful" to describe the company's organic food offered nationwide. Now, locals can also visit Cōpow's retail market next to the Coeur d'Alene Costco and at the Cōpow Café that opened on June 10 in downtown Coeur d'Alene.
With years of experience in the health and fitness industry, Fatz recognized a lack of healthy and tasty prepared food options in the U.S. She was initially set to launch the company at the Las Vegas airport in 2020, but the pandemic forced a pivot to direct shipping of meals to customers around the nation.
After two years of shipping nationwide, Fatz, a resident of Coeur d'Alene for over 20 years, temporarily suspended those operations to open Cōpow's flagship market at 3500 N. Government Way in May of last year. There, customers can not only buy or pick up Cōpow's packaged meals, but also find grab-and-go fridge options — all organic and without seed oils.
With the help of a San Francisco-based design company, Fatz branded the market to look as if an Apple store and a high-end Italian fashion designer came together to open an organic market.
"Consumers don't usually have a really enjoyable time going and buying their food," she says. "But, why not? You should have fun and feel good about spending your money on food, not just going through a grocery store line."
Around 30 individual meals between $8 and $17.50 rotate through the menu on a seasonal basis, averaging 14 ounces each. The summer lineup includes diverse cuisines like fried rice, stir fries, pasta and enchiladas.
Unlike other prepared meal companies that use preservatives, Cōpow uses modified atmosphere packaging, which replaces air with a blend of gases (like nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide) to extend the food's shelf life. Pop a refrigerated meal in the microwave or oven, and it's ready to eat!
Since opening the brick-and-mortar market, Fatz discovered there's also high demand for many of the quality ingredients she's using for Cōpow's packaged meals. So she began stocking farm-fresh eggs, Italian-imported pastas, flour and olive oil, along with sauces, tinned fish and more. But the demand didn't stop there.
"[Customers] had lots of requests for a place to eat in, and we were looking for a place to expand downtown in Coeur d'Alene and this spot came up and I was like, 'That would make a perfect café,'" Fatz says about the newly-opened Cōpow Café at 312 N. Fourth Street.
Approaching the café, consumers are greeted by two mobile tower gardens situated outside. Vegetables and herbs pop out of the towers' niches, waiting to be plucked and brought inside to be used in a dish on the organic menu.
Although the café's white color scheme inside is reminiscent of a minimalist Apple store, it's balanced out with rustic and homey touches like a worn wooden table decked with fresh loaves of bread and snacks.
"For the café, I wanted it to feel even one more step personalized," Fatz says. "I wanted it to feel like I was inviting people into my home for a cup of coffee and a pastry."
While you won't see or hear the words "healthy" in Cōpow's branding, the menu speaks for itself, consisting of rice and salad bowls, smoothies, espresso drinks, scratch-made pastries, as well as grab-and-go fridges full of prepped meals.
The bowls cater to every taste. Find more sweet-leaning flavors in the Bee-You-Tiful bowl ($15.50) that tops either salad greens or farro (ancient grain) with honey chicken, bee pollen, goat cheese, blueberries, candied cashews and a drizzle of honey lemon vinaigrette.
Or, opt for savory and spicy options like the gochujang rainbow bowl ($14.50-$15.95) with your choice of protein, crunchy veggies like cucumber, pickled onion, cabbage and carrot, all slathered with Fresno chili lime and Asian dressing.
"If you would have told me that I would own a smoothie place, I would have said you were crazy," Fatz says. "Because they are just not healthy. People think smoothies are good for you, and typically they're not. There's just a lot of sugar."
The five smoothies that Cōpow offers, however, have little to no added sugar and are packed with nutrients and high in protein. Fatz points out the Berry Beautiful ($15) smoothie that incorporates nutrient-dense sea moss as well as strawberries, bananas and collagen.
For its coffee menu, the café partners with Evans Brothers for a signature blend that emulates a dark, Italian roast. At the full espresso bar, find an Americano ($3.75-$4.50) or something more fancy like a collagen whipped cold brew ($7.50-$8).
Don't fret tea lovers, the café has matcha ($4-$7), chai ($5.50-$6) and assorted hot teas ($4). Or, if you're looking for fun, fancy non-alcoholic beverages, the café has seasonal mocktails ($8) and non-alcoholic wine ($8.50-$9.50) and beer ($4.50).
Though only recently opened, the café is already bustling. Many customers are regulars of Cōpow's market or meal programs.
One aspect that attracts Cōpow's customer base is its locally-sourced ingredients that arose from community relationships. For instance, the company uses the smaller pullet eggs from Sullivan Family Farms based in Cheney, which took a few black French Marans roosters off Fatz's hands to start a breeding program.
"We buy all her pullet eggs, which brings my food costs down, it provides her a way to get rid of her pullet eggs and still make some money off of them," Fatz says of the mutually beneficial partnership.
Cōpow's community connection runs even deeper. With every meal purchased, the company donates one to help those facing food insecurity locally. Fatz estimates more than 27,000 meals have been donated so far through the Brighter Life Foundation, a nonprofit she also founded. Local charities or individuals can apply to receive the food and pick it up at Cpow's Post Falls distribution kitchen.
"We're always looking for new organizations to partner with that have a need for feeding hungry people," she says.
While convenient food has long garnered a reputation for compromising taste and health, Cōpow aims to offer the best of both worlds.
"The world of food is just beautiful if you're just eating real food," Fatz says.
Cōpow Café • 312 N. Fourth Street, Coeur d'Alene • Open Tue-Thu 8 am-6 pm; Fri-Sat 8 am-8 pm; Sun 8 am-2 pm• copow-foods.com • 208-446-8531
