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Simply EZ Home Delivered Meals
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: December 23, 2014
Each week, nearly 1,900 people who have difficulty getting out of their residences are served a supply of nutritious food by the driving crew at the Simply EZ Akron office.
Most of the people who receive these deliveries are shut-in to their homes for various reasons, and most also qualify under the MyCare Ohio program, said Gabriel Toles, who is one of the owners of the Akron franchise.
MyCare Ohio is a program coordinating benefits for people who receive both Medicare and Medicaid.
“Throughout my whole life, I have always wanted to do something to help people,” said Toles, 38. “MyCare Ohio works to keep seniors in their homes, and provides great services for those individuals, so that they have these kinds of choices.”
Those choices include the ability to pick home food delivery providers, he said.
Simply EZ began in Mansfield in 1998 by Donald and Sharon Granter. Starting with one van and one route, the company has expanded through the years to comprise franchised offices in Columbus, Toledo and Lima, as well as Akron and Mansfield, said Michael Cline, 37, another Simply EZ owner.
The company as a whole delivers more than 135,000 meals per month in 56 counties across the state.
Located on Damar Drive, Simply EZ is close to Chapel Hill mall and is co-owned by Toles, Cline, and the Granters, all of whom came from food service backgrounds before being affiliated with Simply EZ. It employs about 35 people, said Toles, which includes office staff, kitchen staff and drivers.
The company was started in 2007 and Toles said that the Akron office has grown from a four-county service to a delivery area that includes most of northeast Ohio.
Operated much like Meals on Wheels, Cline said he doesn’t see them as competitors. “We are all in the business of serving a certain population, and different people simply have different needs, and want different kinds of foods,” he said. “And there are a lot of people who have physical limitations.”
Toles explained that the food delivered to the consumers is made by the company in its Akron kitchen. The food is packaged in several different ways. Full meals can be put into trays for the freezer or some food will come packaged for the freezer, some for the refrigerator and some for the pantry. The food is vacuum-wrapped, so that it stays fresh for a long time. Recipients can combine the dishes in the ways suggested by the company nutritionist, or make it any way that they want, said Cline.
Cline said the menus rotate regularly, running a different menu every week for eight weeks for lunch and four weeks for breakfast. An in-house nutritionist develops all the meals, he said.
Toles said most of the delivery drivers are retired or semi-retired.
“It makes a good part-time job,” he said, with the added benefit that since most of the company’s consumers are a part of the aged population “our consumers can identify with their driver.”
Driver George Bozeka retired as an attorney for the city of Akron. He said that retirement got boring.
“I got tired of just playing golf after I had been retired for a couple of years,” he said.
He was looking for a job that would entail just a couple of days a week and he said driving for Simply EZ fit that perfectly.
“It was a good match,” he said. “I have been here now almost two-and-a-half years.”
Bozeka said that the best part of his job is the opportunity to give back to the community.
“The people we deliver food to really appreciate it,” he said. “It is really very gratifying.”
That sentiment is echoed by both Toles and Cline, who cite a high degree of job satisfaction.
“This is the first position that I have held where I am satisfied every day that I go into work,” said Cline. “It truly doesn’t feel like a job.”
Toles said simply, “I love what I do.”