Celebrity Chefs Andrew Zimmern and Gavin Kaysen's Next Career Move Is Feeding Professional Athletes

When celebrity chef and television host Andrew Zimmern teamed up with 2007 Food & Wine Best New Chef Gavin Kaysen — also a Minneapolis-based restaurateur like Zimmern — to start a sports-focused food business in their home state, it seemed to be more of a happenstance beginning. But there’s nothing unintentional about the pair’s latest decision to take the resulting sports hospitality brand, KZ Provisioning, nationwide. 

“Great businesses are based on problem solving [an issue] that exists in a large enough space that enough people need your solution,” Andrew Zimmern tells Food & Wine about the expansion. “I think we tick that box.” 

KZ Provisioning started with a lunch in 2017. Kaysen was dining with a friend who was a member of the NHL team the Minnesota Wild after a practice at the team’s facility, only to be “dumbfounded” when he learned that the athlete’s meals weren’t centered around nutrition first, he explains to Food & Wine. This realization prompted him to collaborate with Zimmern and write a business plan for KZ Provisioning, which he quickly presented to the Wild. 

The chefs started with signing a three-year deal with the hockey team, and added contracts with the Minnesota Timberwolves of the NBA and the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA a little over two years later. Now KZ Provisioning is on its third contract with the Wild and second contract with both basketball teams. “As anybody in the sports business knows,” Kaysen says, “it is the re-signing of the contract that is the difficult part. We have seen success.” 

KZ Provisioning is now partnering with Aramark — a multi-billion dollar company that provides food and facility management services to 15 countries — to expand the business model that the Minneapolis chefs have perfected.

“Professional athletes are asked to perform at the highest level,” Zimmern notes. “They are asked to be excellent all the time, and want partners who are excellent all the time, and provide consistency over the length of that relationship. We provide that in a very important way, and the management of teams understand that and see us as a value add.” 

Kaysen points out that the Aramark partnership gives KZ Provisioning a sales and marketing team, helping them navigate the tricky contracts and timing of professional teams and arenas. The chef emphasizes that “We need to have an entity support us and put a megaphone [behind] what it is we are doing.” 

While the pair’s early contracts came from local relationships, Aramark’s position as a national leader in sports concessions means it already has partnerships across the country. Zimmern details that “[It] provided that missing piece we needed for growth. A year ago, we became aware on both sides that this could be a one plus one equals three relationship.” 

What began as something fun for the two chefs has matured into a shining example of what sports nutrition could really be. “It started as a side hustle for fun,” Kaysen says, “but turned into so much more because we got really good at it.” 

Zimmern credits the company’s exemplary reputation to its emphasis on bringing a hospitality component into the sports space, not only improving the ingredients and quality of the food served to elite athletes, but also acting quickly to customize responses to both individual and team needs.

According to the travel expert and celebrity chef, “The sports world is highly competitive and the culture lives in a microwave environment of ‘what are you doing for me now?’ We have consistently demonstrated excellence of product as well as an ability to pivot with the teams.”

Unlike other brands that might stick to a menu plan for three months without flexibility, KZ offers a weekly menu, which it can also switch up at a moment’s notice. Sometimes those changes are based on a personal request, but they can also be shaped by the team’s nutritionists, strength trainers, and medical staff, to create food that is ideal for recovery — whether that’s dishes for regular post-game nutrition, or foods that meet a specific need, like ingredients that support joint health. Together this attention to detail and ability to adapt results in made-to-order dishes for individual players. 

A team may come to the hospitality brand during a hot streak — or a not-so-hot streak — and ask for the players’ favorite comfort foods, a celebratory dessert, or a special meal to bring the team together. KZ Provisioning adjusts to the needs that are presented, and Zimmern says it focuses on treating the athletes as humans.

KZ also prides itself on extending beyond the athletes themselves, often feeding players’ families. The culinary team ultimately becomes part of the larger sports organization — the Wild has included part of the KZ team that they worked closely with in the official team photo for the past two seasons.

KZ cares deeply about individualized nutrition and high-quality ingredients. For example, in Minnesota it sources all its beef from the Wisconsin-based Peterson Craft Meats. Since switching to the purveyor’s heritage-bred, family-farmed livestock, the players have realized how delicious it is, and that eating better ingredients makes them feel better. Now the athletes are going straight to Andy Peterson to buy beef for their home kitchens and families.

Kaysen thinks KZ is set up to enact this same attention to excellent ingredients across the country, noting that “We are able to introduce them to a product that is exceptionally better than [what] they are finding in a grocery store.”

When it comes to personal touches — whether that means setting up teams with treats sent to their homes; celebrating family birthdays, anniversaries, or career milestones; making sure they eat at the best restaurants while on the road; or delivering a thermos of warm chicken broth after a plane lands at 2 a.m. — KZ always excels.

If a player arrives home in the middle of the night after a trip, they’re often cold, hungry, and may go home and eat something that won’t help them perform the next day. This is a time to show up, and Kaysen explains that “If we can fill thermoses with warm chicken or vegetable broth, when they get in their car they have something to sip on while driving home. Then they are filled up, go to bed, and then get up and come to the arena or rink and our chefs are ready to make a ready-to-order breakfast.” Prioritizing nutrition and food even in tiring moments like this can play a key role in performance later on. 

Taking such a personal, customized strategy nationwide is the next step. KZ has grown in discipline while also learning that each team has its own story and needs, and Kaysen explains that “As we start to think about what this looks like nationally, we have been gearing up for this the last three years. We need to give teams the opportunity to look at this and say this is a no-brainer for us.” 

A growing emphasis on athlete health and wellness across the country has helped set the company up for success, in addition to KZ Provisioning’s growing reputation as players have changed teams and sung its praises. Visiting teams in Minneapolis now often forgo post-game meals from local restaurants, instead opting for catering from KZ because of its stellar record and reviews. 

The two chefs recognize that when the right timing is paired with this excellent reputation, there will soon be opportunities for expansion. “I think we will be able to take advantage as teams’ contracts come up,” Zimmern notes. 

No matter where the next contract takes them, KZ Provisioning plans on continuing its individualized approach. “What we have effectively done is taken the intentionality of what makes restaurants so great, and have focused it on the 20 athletes or so on a day-to-day basis all day,” Kaysen points out. “Now that we’ve cooked for these teams for so long, we know the nuances of things they like and don’t like, and what makes them smile and laugh after a road trip, or what makes them feel like they are home.”