Are you doing this in your home with a chosen group of people and then you add up the cost of food and freezer bags and split the cost equally between all of you? Or are you planning to start a business open to the public?

If you are wanting to start a group of friends in a home as in the first case I would advise some of these things to think about:

- don't start off with a large group of people at first; maybe have just 6-8 cooks at first
- appoint or elect one person to be the 'in charge' person to provide direction for the group and settle any disputes that may arise
- have each member come up with a list of dishes they would like for the group to make, make sure they consider allergies and personal likes/dislikes of their family members and take these into consideration when choosing the dishes the first time and each time after
- decide the day and time to meet the first time, making sure to point out that the first prep day may take more time than subsequent days
- choose only a few dishes for the first time, maybe 3-5 dishes
- decide how and who will do the purchasing of the ingredients and freezer bags
- in the future, plan to change jobs so everyone gets a chance to do purchasing and clean-up crew rather than getting stuck with the same job each time
- maybe have the leader or another participant be the person to email/phone the others with any plans or questions.

Google search: freeze ahead crock pot meals

Have fun!
Teresa

Thanks for the good tips Teresa. Just planning on doing this with a group of friends possibly in our church's kitchen which is large. If we (my friend and I) suggest it, then we are in charge, LOL!

Rather than starting with something that has a lot of fresh ingredients, perhaps you might have an easier time if you started by making meal in a jar type recipes that just have a few vegetables that aren't prone to easy spoilage. They benefit from bulk savings and you won't have as many handling issues as if you included meats, greens, etc. They can also be the just add 8 oz. meat and 1 bunch of kale kinds of things.

Before you start, read up on food handling and kitchen cleaning for food service. When you're all sharing foods like that, if you can start with the whole kitchen properly scrubbed down and laid out, and everybody's hands well washed to the elbow, there'll be a lot less likelihood of cross contamination.

Multiple cooks, who don't "just know" which knife has been used for fish, or which towel was used to mop up, can create havoc. Also, police each other about tasting. At home you might taste from the stirring spoon or stick your finger in. People who live in the same houses have a lot of bacteria in common. Not so your friends. Make sure there are easily distinguished tasting spoons (lots teaspoons or disposable), and call each other out to rewash hands every time you see someone lick a finger or touch her face. Really.

This sounds like a fun project, but food poisoning is no fun at all. Agreeing at the outset to be really careful will let you all relax the rest of the time, and have a laugh...while keeping standards up.