KZ Provisioning Scores Major Partner to Level Up Athlete Nutrition
Partnering with Aramark Sports & Entertainment will enable KZ Provisioning to expand its bespoke culinary services, fueling athletes’ performance and recovery with personalized, nutritious meals
Consider it pro-level nourishment.
Aramark, the food and beverage provider at stadiums and entertainment venues across North America, has partnered with the award-winning chef team behind KZ Provisioning to expand KZ’s reach among professional and collegiate athletes and teams, energizing and fueling athletes with personalized nutrition solutions.
Founded in 2017 by culinary experts Andrew Zimmern and Gavin Kaysen, KZ Provisioning provides tailored menus and performance-focused meals specifically designed for professional athletes, their coaches and their families. The concept was born after Chef Kaysen had lunch at a practice facility and realized players were eating junk food, with the only options being take-out or low-nutrition meals. Since its inception, KZ Provisioning has served organizations like the Minnesota Lynx, Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Wild.
“Andrew and I started KZ Provisioning because we recognized that professional athletes weren’t being fully supported in terms of the foods that were being made available to them,” Chef Kaysen said. “Athletes are expected to perform at the highest levels, which requires nutritional support and strategic attention to detail. Our mission is to provide athletes with the foods that will fuel their performance, support their health and ultimately create a path to performance excellence.”
Athletes can expect nutrition-packed, customized, restaurant-quality mealtime options due to the new partnership with on-site chefs, who are available from pre-season to playoffs. KZ Provisioning chefs collaborate with the team nutritionists, dietitians and strength trainers in creating personalized programs for each player. The food options are extensive—among the sample lunch menus are items like braised Peterson short rib, herb-roasted turkey breast, and porcini and chicken meatballs, served with sides such as garlic squash and roasted Brussels sprouts with apple chutney. The company also creates pre-game energy meals, post-training recovery dishes, snacks and smoothies.
“At KZ Provisioning we offer best-in-class hospitality services to all our partner clients. We also believe in player happiness as a quantifiable metric that affects performance,” Chef Zimmern said. “Our emphasis on the extraordinary impact our culinary offerings have on players across all our teams is our daily work. So when you combine all those areas of expertise with Aramark’s leadership and their ability to amplify our work via this new partnership, we have an offering that teams across the nation will find invaluable.”
Aramark CEO Alison Birdwell noted that the new partnership with KZ Provisioning is a natural extension of Aramark’s work with sports owners, operators, athletes and stadiums.
“The opportunity for us to have such dedicated and reputable partners as Andrew and Gavin is special,” Birdwell said. “KZ Provisioning uniquely combines the culinary excellence and high attention to detail of two world-renowned chefs with a thoughtfulness of the athlete experience that is unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
