Our Story

Told by our Founder and Director,
Alex Marlow.

 

Like most compelling stories that ignite our imagination and capture our heart, the story of how GCM started is filled with leaps of faith, determination, challenges, and exciting wins.

Many say food is the most important thing when it comes to weight loss. Unfortunately for me, food is also my biggest weakness.

I’ve worked around food my entire adult life and have built a career that I’m both proud of and passionate about, in the food industry.

So, how did this lifechanging journey begin?

Well, as much as I knew how to make food taste great, I didn't really know too much about using food as a tool for weight loss. The concept of using food for fuel, as opposed to simply for pleasure, was new to me. If only there were food options that tasted great, were readily prepared for me, and would help me train, lose weight and help me kick my sugar addiction.
It turns out there is food that ticks all of these boxes; I’ve created it and it’s been a game changer for the health and wellbeing of our entire community.

My weightless journey began in July 2017, when over a 12-month period I lost 12kgs of body fat, and despite eating ALLL the food at Christmas time, I maintained my new weight. I’d joined my town’s local F45 8-week challenge, and was so impressed by their suggested menu, that I was inspired to get cooking! I should preface this by telling you I’ve owned the wildly popular hospital café in Mount Gambier for many years, and already had a commercial-grade kitchen in operation. I asked the owner of my F45 studio if I could make batches of the challenge recipes and offer them to their members. It was an instant success! I’d uncovered a huge gap in the market for Mount Gambier; packaged meals that were healthy AND delicious. This is how Gym Challenge Meals was born. I quickly mocked up a logo, started a Facebook group for ordering, and before long, the orders were coming in so quickly and in such large quantities, that my hospital café couldn’t keep up with both the challenge meals and our existing café food. I’d learned so much about nutrition and creating meals using healthier options, that our menu featuring exclusively our own meal creations, was growing by the day.

What’s life without great adventure? And there’s no adventure without risk! I took a leap of faith and signed a lease for Gym Challenge Meals’ very own store, featuring a large kitchen, shop front, space for display fridges, and…barista made coffee! We’re in a small town, and unless you wanted to drive through a fast-food joint, there wasn’t a single place you could get a barista-made coffee after 3pm, on any day of the week! Our team expanded, and we were smashing our goals like never before.

Enter the dark cloud of Covid-19 and the major impact on retail. We rose to the challenge and pivoted. Stuck at home for isolation? We’ll deliver your meals to you and leave them on your doorstep. Don’t feel comfortable going to the supermarket? We’ll take care of your meals. Miss dining out on a weekend? We’ve got the chef-made meals that will make Netflix and chill feel like you’re dining in the hottest new restaurant in town. It was through our ability to be creative, solve a need for our customers, and fly through every new hurdle, that our small business survived when so many others didn’t.

In 2021, with high goals for Gym Challenge Meals, I embarked on another adventure; registering as a company and securing investors and stockholders. This new capital allowed me to put into action some major improvements for Gym Challenge Meals; a better website, professional marketing, and giving back to our local community through sponsorships.

Feeling like we’d firmly created our own identity, and with our customer base expanding from gym lovers to everyone who valued healthy eating and saving time, it was time for a rebrand! In 2022, we moved from Gym Challenge Meals to GCM. We worked with an amazing brand designer to create a new logo and visual identity and entered the next phase of our life as a company.

At the end of 2022, when we refitted our shopfront with our new branding, we swapped our packaging to a completely new, and super sustainable system, and introduced GCM Home Delivery.

2023 saw us trek into unknown waters, and partner with businesses throughout South Australia and western Victoria, to stock our meals. We found such a high demand from our neighbouring towns, that we began weekly home delivery throughout Warrnambool, Portland, Hamilton, Port Fairy, Casterton, Naracoorte, Tarpeena, Nangwarry, and Penola.

With even bigger goals on the horizon for the rest of 2023 and beyond, we plan to bring GCM franchise opportunities to towns and cities across Australia. We believe with such fierce passion, that everyone should have access to healthy, convenient, and insanely tasty meals. GCM franchise opportunities will make this a reality for so many more Australians, than if we were to continue running from only our one store in Mount Gambier.

The key to our success has been our determination to always:

• Use fresh and high-quality ingredients, supporting local suppliers whenever possible.
• Help people achieve their goals through convenient access to good, nutritious food.
• Give our customers more time to do the things most important to them in life.

We’ve loved seeing our customer base grow from solely those working hard in the gym, to also include office workers, tradies, students, athletes, shift workers, busy parents and single parents, families, singles, seniors, and so many more. Our GCM meals really are for everyone!

We currently have over 25 different meals available to purchase at any given time, and our specials menu changes every week.  I’m so immensely proud of this business, we’re improving our product and our processes every day as we fine tune our business, and continue to support our community along the way.

I know in my soul, that our food is a wonderful tool for so many people, who need that little bit of extra help when time gets away from them. GCM is meal prep for the time poor. We’re affordable, delicious, and always good fun. What more could you possibly want?

Alex Marlow
Founder of GCM

 

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