In the summer of 2012, TrueMan McGee decided he wanted to change his life, improve his health, get active and create better food options for himself and his community. He started Getting Tired Fitness and things changed once he started bringing food for clients for after workout meals.
“I also realized that people want to eat healthier foods after the workout,” McGee said. “I started bringing food to the workouts. The food got so popular that people would skip the workout and come to the end for food.”
A year later, he created his business Funky Fresh Spring Rolls and opened a restaurant in the Sherman Phoenix Marketplace in Milwaukee.
McGee recently closed that restaurant to focus on expanding his product offering in grocery stores nationwide, helped by a collaboration with Palermo Villa, a Milwaukee based pizza manufacturer.
He is excited for the expansion of his business, which started as an effort to make a change in his own life.
“Funky Fresh kind of came all in one day,” McGee said. “I was thinking fit rolls, then fresh rolls because I use fresh ingredients. But they’re unique and different. I was thinking and came up with funky fresh, it’s like hip hop, it’s a culture.
“A designer gave me six different logos. When I saw the current logo we have, I knew in the moment that this is going to be what’s gonna get me back on my feet, out of poverty, out of my parents house. I never looked back after that.”
Since launching his frozen products, McGee has noted many successes and challenges in this transition. He is glad to have the opportunity to explore the plethora of healthier food options he can sell.
“I’m able to really, really put all my energy into our frozen brand and see what happens,” McGee said. “I’m able to fully fulfill my purpose and see what that will look like.”
Although there has been much success in getting to grocery stores and physically selling his product, he does miss community members and customers he’d interact with daily.
“Some of the things that have been different and challenging have been probably just missing our customers that we see every day and missing my employees that were working everyday with us,” he said.
“We still have a few people working with us from the restaurant, but a lot of people went into other jobs,” he said. “Missing the everyday interaction I get from the community.”
Now that the spring rolls are available in stores, McGee and his team are traveling across Wisconsin and Illinois to promote them.
“It’s also challenging going to different places where people don’t know anything about you, and trying to tell your story and sell your product in 30 seconds,” he said. “It’s a challenge, but we are equipped for the job.”
McGee hopes to use his platform to help other entrepreneurs get their products on shelves.
“There’s a lot of space for growth in the food business,” he said. “A lot of people of color have the creativity, we just don’t have the resources or even just the knowledge on how to take that first step.”
As a Milwaukee native, McGee is working to create opportunities to support his community with his business.
“We already started some classes, including social media classes and we’re trying to do other events that involve food down the line,” he added. “We plan to be involved in the community heavily because we are the community. There wouldn’t be a Funky Fresh without people in Milwaukee supporting us.”
To learn more about Funky Fresh Spring Rolls and where you can purchase them in your city, visit their website.
