Ideal Nutrition Renews and Expands Its Partnership with Square as It Scales Booming Franchise Brand

Ideal Nutrition deepens its use of Square’s unified commerce and AI tools as it grows beyond 17 Florida locations toward a franchise-driven national presence.

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The Florida-based, prepared meal brand has renewed and expanded its commitment to Square as it scales from 17 locations to a national footprint

DISTRIBUTED-WORKFORCE/OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Square today announced that Ideal Nutrition, the Florida-based healthy prepared meal concept, has renewed and expanded its partnership as it eyes national franchise expansion. Operating 17 retail locations across Florida – with three more in construction and additional sites under consideration – Ideal Nutrition has committed to Square as the unified commerce platform behind its retail stores, franchise operations, loyalty program, marketing, and payroll as it aims to become a national brand.

Photo courtesy of Ideal Nutrition

Ideal Nutrition was founded by Wolfgang Brunet, Founder and CEO, who was serving as a police officer in West Palm Beach at the time. Long before starting the company, Brunet had made healthy eating and staying active an important part of his lifestyle. He also brought a diverse professional and educational background to the business, including experience in finance prior to entering law enforcement, as well as degrees in Business Management and Marketing.

While working as a police officer, Brunet regularly prepared his own meals to support his health and fitness goals. As colleagues increasingly asked where he was getting his meals, he recognized an opportunity to turn something he was already passionate about into a business. That idea ultimately became Ideal Nutrition.

Fellow officer Matthew Steinberg, now Ideal Nutrition’s Vice President, witnessed the company’s early beginnings and joined the business in early 2018. Since then, Ideal Nutrition has grown from a delivery-only meal prep company into a multi-channel operation producing approximately 150,000 meals per week. Meals are priced at $8.49 and prepared in-house at the company’s West Palm Beach, Florida manufacturing facility.

In 2019, Ideal Nutrition opened its first retail store, giving customers another way to experience the brand beyond home delivery. The retail concept allowed customers to walk in, browse meals in person, purchase exactly what they wanted, and enjoy the convenience of healthy prepared meals without committing to a subscription. The first location proved successful, establishing the foundation for what would become a significant part of Ideal Nutrition’s growth strategy.

One Platform Across Retail, Franchise, and Beyond

Ideal Nutrition has never operated a retail store without Square, and as the brand has grown in complexity, so has its use of the platform. Across its 17 locations, Ideal Nutrition now runs Square Point-of-Sale on the Square Register – selected in part for how it complements the standardized design of Ideal Nutrition retail stores – and the Square Handheld for versatility and mobile barcode scanning. On the backend, Square for Franchises gives corporate leadership centralized visibility across both corporate-owned and franchised locations while each franchisee manages their own Square account. The ‘Menu’ feature, in particular, allows them to orchestrate items across revenue channels and franchisee locations.

For customer delivery, Ideal Nutrition connects Square with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and GrubHub through Square’s native menu integration, a solution that has also significantly streamlined the weekly menu update process as Ideal Nutrition’s rotating menu of 40-plus chef-crafted meals changes frequently. Square Online enables same-day, in-store pickup at all locations. The brand also uses Square Gift Cards across its locations, with a third-party integration tying in electronic gift cards sold through its Shopify-powered subscription platform.

Square Payroll, Square Shifts, Square Loyalty, and Square Marketing (including text message and email campaigns with automated customer triggers) round out the stack, giving franchisees and corporate operators alike access to a unified set of tools through a single login. Ideal Nutrition has seen email open rates of ~47%. And since the start of 2025, their customers have accrued over 17M loyalty points and redeemed over 64% of them, translating to over 110K gifted meals.

“Square has been part of Ideal Nutrition since the day we opened our first retail store, and the relationship has only grown stronger as our company has expanded,” said Wolfgang Brunet, Founder and CEO of Ideal Nutrition. “Today, our customers can purchase Ideal Nutrition meals through our growing network of retail locations or order directly through our website for convenient direct-to-consumer delivery. Having a platform that our teams trust, that can scale alongside our business, and that our franchisees can confidently use from day one is extremely important to us. Other companies have tried to win us over, but Square has continued to earn our loyalty. We’re excited about where the relationship goes from here, particularly as we begin leveraging Square’s AI capabilities to operate more efficiently, better understand our customers, and make smarter decisions as we continue to grow.”

“Ideal Nutrition is one of the most advanced Square sellers, with retail, franchise, loyalty, marketing, payroll, and delivery all running through our platform,” said James Schonzeit, Head of Food & Beverage at Square. “As the business rapidly grows, their team is maximizing the technological capabilities available, including by leaning into our AI tools. Wolfgang and Matthew turned this grassroots meal prep concept into a multi-location franchise that’s only just beginning, and we’re excited to serve as the foundation of their expanding footprint.”

Looking ahead, Ideal Nutrition expects to reach 20 locations before the end of 2026 and is actively evaluating markets outside of Florida as it works toward national expansion. The team is also exploring Square’s AI capabilities for store-level meal order forecasting based on sales trends and seasonal history – part of a broader commitment to using the data inside Square to make smarter operational decisions as the brand scales.

To learn more about how Square powers food and beverage businesses, visit squareup.com/restaurants.

About Ideal Nutrition

Founded in 2014 in West Palm Beach, Florida by Wolfgang Brunet, Ideal Nutrition is a healthy prepared meal concept operating 17 retail locations across Florida, with additional locations in development. The brand sells chef-crafted, refrigerated prepared meals through its retail stores, a subscription delivery model, and third-party delivery partners, with all meals produced in-house at its Florida manufacturing facility. Ideal Nutrition launched franchising in January 2024. For more information, visit idealnutritionnow.com.

About Square

Square helps businesses turn transactions into connections and businesses into neighborhood favorites.

In 2009, Square started with a simple invention – the first mobile card reader, which changed how the entire financial system thinks about small businesses. Square has since grown into a global business platform helping millions of sellers of all sizes participate and thrive in their communities. Whether independently run or a global chain, Square understands that sellers succeed when they have the freedom to focus on the experiences that keep customers coming back. From point of sale and payments to online commerce, staff management, cash flow tools, and more, Square brings together the tools sellers need to run and grow on one intelligent platform. For more information, visit squareup.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260918505865/en/

Media Contact:
Square Press
press@squareup.com

Source: Block, Inc.

Key Terms

unified commerce technical

Unified commerce is a way retailers and service companies connect all sales channels, inventory, customer information and payments into a single system so customers get the same experience whether they shop online, in an app, or in a store. For investors it matters because it can boost sales, cut costs and make customer behavior easier to predict—like replacing separate neighborhood maps with one live GPS that shows the whole route and traffic.

point-of-sale technical

The point-of-sale is the place and moment where a customer completes a purchase — think of the checkout counter, card reader, or online checkout page. It includes the hardware and software that record the sale, accept payment, and update inventory and sales records. Investors care because POS systems drive revenue collection, customer data, and operational efficiency; outages, fees, or weak data from POS can directly affect sales, margins and forecasts.

direct-to-consumer technical

A direct-to-consumer (DTC) model is when a company sells its products or services straight to customers, skipping middlemen like retailers or wholesalers. For investors, DTC matters because it can mean higher profit margins, closer customer relationships and faster feedback—like a baker who sells directly from the shop instead of through a grocery chain—while also exposing the business to costs for marketing, customer support and logistics that affect growth and profitability.

barcode scanning technical

Barcode scanning is the use of a handheld or fixed device to read the pattern of lines or squares on a label, translating it into a digital product or item identifier much like scanning a fingerprint. For investors it matters because it drives faster checkout, tighter inventory control, fewer errors and better sales and supply-chain data, which can lower costs, improve margins and enable smarter operational decisions that affect profitability and growth.