August 14, 2023 • 18 mins
Carlos Ventura is CEO of Feast and Fettle, a local, fully-prepared meal delivery service. F&F operates out of their local commercial kitchen, servicing Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Providing "Home-Cooked Meals, Without the Cooking," Feast and Fettle helps you unwind, relax and enjoy the dinnertime you deserve with high-quality meals prepared locally and hand-delivered to your home.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I built, George. We're talkingwith Carlos Ventura, the CEO of Feast
and Fettle. Hi, Carlos,how's it going. It's going, It's
going great, Thank you, Carlos. The first thing that someone sees on
the Feast and Fettle website is yourslogan home cooked meals without the cooking.
That seems like a mission statement.That is, it's pretty self explanatory.
(00:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Youknow, we started this business back in
twenty sixteen. Two very close friendsof mine, Maggie and Nikki, essentially
did this at an extremely small scale. Maggie graduated from Johnson and Wales as
a private chef, and you know, her whole approach on cooking is essentially,
(00:44):
you know, giving you that homecooking feeling and that home cooked you
know experience. It's important because youknow, food is one thing, but
you know, the emotional aspect andthe community aspect of eating with your family
or eating with your you know,the ones you love is is essentially what
we're trying to do, and wejust use food to kind of you know,
unlock that experience. Yeah, forfolks who aren't familiar with it,
(01:07):
basically just to kind of summarize soand make sure I understand. So each
week you make your selections on awebsite from a curated menu you've got on
trees and sides, and you've goteight entrees to choose from three year,
vegetarian and vegan friendly. There's aselection of ten side dishes. So basically,
you go online, you pick ameal plan, and then you decide
(01:29):
what you want to do for yourfamily, and then those meals are delivered.
Right, Yeah, that's that's essentiallyit. And and I want to
you know, highlight one thing youmentioned, which is this notion of entrees
and sides. It's a little bitdifferent than you know, other call it
meal delivery services that you may haveexperienced in the past because of that flexibility,
right, you know, entrees andsides. And this goes again back
(01:49):
to our roots when Maggie was youknow, a personal chef and and andy
in a house. You have three, four or five people in a house
and no one needs the same,you know, having that flexibility to have
entrees and sides and being able topair those at home, replate them and
eat with a family is a criticaldifferentiator for what we do. And now
it sounds like something that definitely fitsa need in today's busy world. So
(02:10):
tell us about some of the motivationbehind actually getting started with feast and fettle.
We do have, i'd say,a broad audience with a pretty broad
use case. But yeah, youknow, one of the one of the
key things that we do see isthis notion of convenience and this notion of
saving time. And you know,for us, we've seen a lot of
folks try to solve that in differentways, and I would say ways that
(02:31):
aren't really solving the problem. Ieat your traditional meal kits where someone will
send you, you know, youknow, a bunch of ingredients, which
might end up being more time consumingdepending on how you look at things.
But our approach on this is fullyprepared meals, high quality, essentially things
that are familiar that you would cookat home if you did have the time.
And folks don't have the time thatthey used to, you know,
(02:53):
the workplace is transitioning and changing,and we want to make sure that folks
will have the time to sit downand enjoy good meal together. Yeah,
you brought up a good point thatbasically there's there's not very much effort involved
in all the products that you havehere, everything can be prepared and about
what in about ten minutes. Basicallyyou're just you're just heating up what you
get from Feast and Fettle, right, Yeah, it's essentially you're just reheating,
(03:17):
reheating, that's all. There's noassembly required, there's no cooking required.
You know, we we customize dishesdown, you know, down to
your specific allergen or dietary preferences.So there's a lot of customization, a
lot of personalization, and you know, we we we tend to take a
lot of care and the entire experience. One of the things that I think
(03:39):
people are looking for all the timenow when they do these online services is
finding something that is easy to doand easy to understand. And I think
that's one of the things that Ilove about your website. You want to
just walk us through real quickly.Once somebody goes onto the Feast and Fettle
website, how they basically pick outwhat they're going to do and what they're
(04:02):
ordering. Yeah, we try tomake the process as easy as possible as
you could imagine. But we simplyask you, hey, you know,
you know, what's your household sizeand how many nights per week, Are
you looking to have us for mydinner? We recommend a plan. Depending
on the plan that we recommend,it's a certain number of entrees and sides.
(04:23):
You know, you sign up tothat plan and at that point,
all you do every week is youmake your selections of entrees and sides.
Again, you can customize those,you know, to your liking, whether
that's hey, I don't want tomatoesor my salad or I want dairy free
bake City, you know, wedo those types of things. That's essentially
it. We take care of therest. The night before you get a
delivery, will send you an SMSor text message on the evening before letting
(04:46):
you know exactly when your food willarrive the next day. You can live
track your driver on the day ofdelivery and essentially it you know, speaking
of drivers, we are fully verticallyintegrated, so everything from prep to cook
to delivery and even the collection ofyour containers. And we can talk a
little bit more about that. Wedo all in house and that's again a
(05:10):
key differentiator of what we're doing.You know, we're not having FedEx or
ups kind of you know, leavea box outside of your house. It's
a lot more intimate than that.Yeah, and and let's let's follow up
on that, because one of thethings that that's kind of neat about the
company too is that it's very green. You know, it's really a sustainable
model in terms of, like yousaid, you're picking up you're not creating
(05:31):
more more trash for somebody, butyou're you're picking up those containers, right,
Yeah, So it actually it actuallystarts earlier than the containers. And
a lot of folks aren't, i'dsay, as aware of what happens in
a traditional commissary kitchen, which is, uh, you know, how we
receive our ingredients, right, Sowe're we're receiving our ingredients in bulk,
(05:53):
ninety five percent plus of which comesin you know, cardboard boxes, which
we break down a lot different thanwhat happens at a grocery store with everything
individually packaged. So there's some inherentsustainability built into you know, a larger
scale commissary kitchen. But when itcomes to you know, our packaging and
the way we deliver our food.We actually have a partnership with this organization
(06:15):
called TerraCycle, and essentially this allowsus to collect and retrieve the plastic containers
that are used. So our customersessentially wash those containers and return them to
us. We pick them up ontheir next delivery, we return them to
TerraCycle, and TerraCycle uses these,uh, these containers, breaks them down
(06:38):
and traditionally into small little pellets,and you know, it could be used
for things like park benches or ifyou ever see those like little pellets or
those rubber pellets on like a likea like an athlete athletic field at like
a high school. So we're essentiallymaking sure that all of the containers that
we collect are going back and intocirculation. It's a big difference than what
(07:00):
happens in like a landfill. Right, A lot of these containers and plastic
don't they are there, aren't sorderedproperly, they don't end up being recycled.
I think about ten percent of allplastic that goes into a landfill is
recycled. So we're ensuring that thatnumber is a lot a lot higher,
probably close at our one hundred percent. And we also collect our reasonable insulated
(07:20):
bags and ice packs, so wetake them back, we sanitize them,
we put them back into circulation.So a lot of sustainability, a lot
of reduced waste and built into theoperation. That's terrific. That is definitely
one of the ways that I thinkFeast and Fettle must be unique. So
what are some of the other thingsthat make you unique in in today's business
(07:42):
environment? It may sound simple,but our product quality in our customer service
is second to none. And it'sa lot harder to communicate that vocally.
You're right, like, you haveto try the food to understand that.
But it's real, you know,when it comes to the stringent you know
ingredient requirements. When it when itcomes to what we allow in our kitchen,
right like, there's you know,the list over two hundred things,
(08:03):
no presertives, no antibiotics. We'reusing high quality ingredients that you would get
at call it a traditional hole foods, right, So we're using very high
quality ingredients. We have professional chefsthat we hire, We have extremely tight
processes around how we produce things,tons of quality checkpoints and you know what
we are food business, and wemake mistakes. And so the way we
(08:24):
look at it is when we makea mistake, it's an opportunity to really
showcase who we are as a brand. I mean, there's been times in
the past where I've delivered a cookie, you know, an hour away at
ten o'clock at night because that customer'skid really wanted that particular cookie. But
this is what we did when wewere small, and we're larger now and
we still do those things. Soit's just the level of customer care and
(08:46):
attention to detail that really separates usand allows us to continue to differentiate ourselves
because this into the crowded space.Yeah, and you've grown a lot,
as you just mentioned, So howmany people do you employ right now at
Feast and Fettle? We have onehundred and seventy employees. That's a big
operation. And how many subscribers justabout seven thousand. That is great.
(09:09):
That really shows that the that theneed is there. So that also shows
what an economic engine you are.One hundred and seventy people is a pretty
decent sized company in Rhode Island here. Yeah, it's a little while to
think about. You know, justa couple of years ago that number was
closer to twenty five thirty people.We've done a lot, particularly on the
(09:31):
human resources and people's side of things. You know, we're hiring a lot
of folks that traditionally come from restaurantbackgrounds that are strenuous. It's tough,
right that business, the hospitality andrestaurant business is a very very tough business,
and you know, we're we're reallydoing our best to change the narrative
around that when it comes to howour culture and our people operate. So
you know, if we hire achef, that individual has you know,
(09:54):
a very fixed schedule, right,which is you know a very different thing
for them, right Like, hey, you actually have a real schedule.
You know, all of our stafftwo days off at least, we're depending
on when this airs. We're movingto a four day work week, so
you know, that's another thing thatis definitely you know, we're pioneering in
the hospitality space. You know,our folks get full benefits. They also
(10:16):
all get a full meal plan forthem and their family. So we want
to ensure that we offer the bestto our employees. So we attract and
maintain the best talent, and thatrequires an investment, and we invest in
our people. It sounds like agreat environment. So you're hiring, Now,
what kind of positions do you haveopen? Wow, you have a
lot of a lot of positions openingacross the business, from all the way
(10:41):
from line cooks to production chefs toa baker to on the business side,
we're hiring a new engineer, We'rehiring on the marketing side, and the
biz dev team, so across theboard we're bringing on new folks. That's
great, and I would assume allthe info on that is up on the
website, right. Yeah, wehave a careers page on our website and
(11:01):
all of our positions are listed there. And if you're looking for a role
or position, check frequently because youknow we're constantly hiring new books, new
and new roles. Right. Wetalked about your green initiatives and and I
know that's something it's important to thecompany. What are some of the other
philanthropic or what are some of theother causes that company is interested in and
(11:22):
helping out with. The big onefor us is a partnership that we established
back in twenty eighteen with an organizationand called Adizia. So Adizia is also
based in Rhode Island, and Icall it Rhode Island's best kept secret.
Not a lot of folks know aboutAdisia, but essentially their mission is to
end child malnutrition across the globe.They have several products with Their core product
(11:46):
is this product called plumpy Nut.It's a shelf stable kind of kind of
being like a peanut butter taste,and they distribute that product. And when
I say distribute, that means they'retypically on the ones on the round,
working with local organizations to get thatproduct to the folks who need it.
And essentially this is a rehabilitation product, right, so these children are malnourished,
(12:09):
often in places that either are experiencingwhether it's warfare or natural disasters,
and getting this product into the handsof those folks that need it most.
And we've partnered with them against it'stwenty eighteen. We do one dollar of
every single order, and you know, it's been fascinating to watch what was
(12:33):
an initial small donation of like athousand dollars, uh, you know,
scale up to you know, we'redoing you know, about thirty grand with
them every quarter and so you know, it's it's it's it's starting to add
up quite substantially, and it's oneof the things we rally around here internally
because it's motivating. That is terrific. Carlos, what haven't we talked about
(12:54):
so far that you want to tellus about feast and fettle, and somebody
should definitely know, you know.I think when it comes to running a
business like this, there's a lotof moving pieces in the background, right
Like you're running a production operation,you're running a technology business, you're running
a logistics business, and there's alot of work that goes into that,
whether that's the person that's prepping outeverything or the individual that brings the food
(13:18):
directly to your door. I thinka lot of folks sometimes don't necessarily understand
the level of intricacy and detail thatgoes into every component of such a complex
business. And you know, asa CEO, as one of the founders
of this company, it's really fascinatingto kind of be able to deliver an
experience where it feels so seamless,right Like it feels like, oh wow,
(13:39):
this is so easy, it's sonice. And I like to sometimes
shout out I don't do this toooften, but like just shout out the
folks that are, you know,doing the work behind the scenes to make
those those moments a reality, andit's it's an important thing to highlight,
and you know, I just thinkit's an important thing for folks to always
(14:01):
remind themselves when, particularly when itcomes to the hospitality business. Yeah,
are you a food guy who hadto learn technology or a technology guy who
had to learn the food business?Oh, that's a that's a that's an
interesting question. I'm definitely more ofa tech finance business background. I had
the opportunity to live overseas for awhile in London, so I became a
(14:22):
foodie there where I was exposed toessentially everything, and I had no business
or no intent to stay in thefood business. And when I was moving
back to us, Maggie gave mea call and said, Hey, you
know, I'm doing this, youknow, Feast and Fettle thing or really
small would you like to pop onboard and take the leap? And yeah,
(14:43):
I'm glad. I'm glad that Idid. Yeah, it sounds like
a fascinating company. And tell usabout Let's run down the ways that somebody
can get in touch and find outmore about the organization. We'll start with
the website. Yeah, the websiteis www dot feast and Fettle dot com.
You could just google meal delivery servicesin Rhode Island, Mass cho sits
New Hampshire Connecticut. We're kind ofall over the web. Our Instagram,
(15:05):
Facebook handles are all the same theirFeast and Fettle, or you could just
contact me directly on LinkedIn Carlos Ventura. I'm pretty responsive there too, so
always looking to meet new folks andnetwork, and I also want to be
sure to mention that it's not justthe website. You also now have a
brick and mortar store too, sotell us about that. Yeah, so
we we've been thinking about going intobrick and mortar for a few years.
(15:31):
I can honestly say it's kind ofbeen breakneck growth for the past few years,
so we've kind of, you know, had the opportunity to step back
and say, Okay, get alittle bit of breathing room. What do
we want to do? How dowe want to continue to grow this business
and be able to serve more people, because we understand eighty five percent plus
of commerce, particularly in the foodspace, is still happening offline, and
(15:52):
there's a lot of folks that seeour vans that understand what we do.
But there's the natural hurdle of goingonline and being comfortable with getting this food
or this service delivered to your door. So we open our first retail location,
the Feasts and Tuttle Fridge. It'skind of like right on the borderline
of Patucket in the east side ofProvidence, right next to Wildflower Bakery on
(16:12):
a Hope Street. And yeah,we've seen a lot of success where we
kind of went into it with Idon't know we went into it with high
expectations, but you know, wewe were we were ready to pivot and
ready to improve upon that concept.And we're opening a couple more this year,
one in Newton, Massachusetts and anotherin Cambridge, Massachusetts. So we're
(16:33):
it's successful and we'll continue to pivoton that model. But yeah, you
can you can hop down to thestore anytime you want, give the service
to try and no, you know, there's no commitment, there's no membership.
You just shop there. You'll beable to try out the service and
also have a nice little interaction withone of our associates as well. Yeah,
I do want to come back tothe name Feast and Fettle. I
think a fettle is not a wordthat gets used a lot in today's language,
(16:56):
So I'm just curious how that howthat evolved into the into the name.
Yeah, so Maggie will probably tellthis story much better than me.
But when she was a little girl, her dad was the director at Roger
Williams Zoo, and there was thisevent she loved to go to every year
called Feast with the Beast, andso she knew feast was one of the
(17:18):
words that she wanted to use inthe title of the business. And this
is there's nothing sexy about this,But she just opened up a dictionary and
found a word that, like,you know, rolled off the tongue really
well, and feddle essentially means ofgood health, and so feast and Feddle
always just felt really, really reallygood. It was actually the first question
I asked when I was like,what does feedtle mean? But it's got
(17:41):
a nice little ring to it.It definitely does. Carlos Ventura is the
CEO at Feast and Feddle. Youcan find them online at Feast and Feddle
dot com. Carlos, thanks somuch for your time today. Appreciate talking
to you, and it's it's afascinating company, so we wish you the
best. Really appreciate it. Bill, Thanks a lot u
I built, George. We're talkingwith Carlos Ventura, the CEO of Feast
and Fettle. Hi, Carlos,how's it going. It's going, It's
going great, Thank you, Carlos. The first thing that someone sees on
the Feast and Fettle website is yourslogan home cooked meals without the cooking.
That seems like a mission statement.That is, it's pretty self explanatory.
(00:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Youknow, we started this business back in
twenty sixteen. Two very close friendsof mine, Maggie and Nikki, essentially
did this at an extremely small scale. Maggie graduated from Johnson and Wales as
a private chef, and you know, her whole approach on cooking is essentially,
(00:44):
you know, giving you that homecooking feeling and that home cooked you
know experience. It's important because youknow, food is one thing, but
you know, the emotional aspect andthe community aspect of eating with your family
or eating with your you know,the ones you love is is essentially what
we're trying to do, and wejust use food to kind of you know,
unlock that experience. Yeah, forfolks who aren't familiar with it,
(01:07):
basically just to kind of summarize soand make sure I understand. So each
week you make your selections on awebsite from a curated menu you've got on
trees and sides, and you've goteight entrees to choose from three year,
vegetarian and vegan friendly. There's aselection of ten side dishes. So basically,
you go online, you pick ameal plan, and then you decide
(01:29):
what you want to do for yourfamily, and then those meals are delivered.
Right, Yeah, that's that's essentiallyit. And and I want to
you know, highlight one thing youmentioned, which is this notion of entrees
and sides. It's a little bitdifferent than you know, other call it
meal delivery services that you may haveexperienced in the past because of that flexibility,
right, you know, entrees andsides. And this goes again back
(01:49):
to our roots when Maggie was youknow, a personal chef and and andy
in a house. You have three, four or five people in a house
and no one needs the same,you know, having that flexibility to have
entrees and sides and being able topair those at home, replate them and
eat with a family is a criticaldifferentiator for what we do. And now
it sounds like something that definitely fitsa need in today's busy world. So
(02:10):
tell us about some of the motivationbehind actually getting started with feast and fettle.
We do have, i'd say,a broad audience with a pretty broad
use case. But yeah, youknow, one of the one of the
key things that we do see isthis notion of convenience and this notion of
saving time. And you know,for us, we've seen a lot of
folks try to solve that in differentways, and I would say ways that
(02:31):
aren't really solving the problem. Ieat your traditional meal kits where someone will
send you, you know, youknow, a bunch of ingredients, which
might end up being more time consumingdepending on how you look at things.
But our approach on this is fullyprepared meals, high quality, essentially things
that are familiar that you would cookat home if you did have the time.
And folks don't have the time thatthey used to, you know,
(02:53):
the workplace is transitioning and changing,and we want to make sure that folks
will have the time to sit downand enjoy good meal together. Yeah,
you brought up a good point thatbasically there's there's not very much effort involved
in all the products that you havehere, everything can be prepared and about
what in about ten minutes. Basicallyyou're just you're just heating up what you
get from Feast and Fettle, right, Yeah, it's essentially you're just reheating,
(03:17):
reheating, that's all. There's noassembly required, there's no cooking required.
You know, we we customize dishesdown, you know, down to
your specific allergen or dietary preferences.So there's a lot of customization, a
lot of personalization, and you know, we we we tend to take a
lot of care and the entire experience. One of the things that I think
(03:39):
people are looking for all the timenow when they do these online services is
finding something that is easy to doand easy to understand. And I think
that's one of the things that Ilove about your website. You want to
just walk us through real quickly.Once somebody goes onto the Feast and Fettle
website, how they basically pick outwhat they're going to do and what they're
(04:02):
ordering. Yeah, we try tomake the process as easy as possible as
you could imagine. But we simplyask you, hey, you know,
you know, what's your household sizeand how many nights per week, Are
you looking to have us for mydinner? We recommend a plan. Depending
on the plan that we recommend,it's a certain number of entrees and sides.
(04:23):
You know, you sign up tothat plan and at that point,
all you do every week is youmake your selections of entrees and sides.
Again, you can customize those,you know, to your liking, whether
that's hey, I don't want tomatoesor my salad or I want dairy free
bake City, you know, wedo those types of things. That's essentially
it. We take care of therest. The night before you get a
delivery, will send you an SMSor text message on the evening before letting
(04:46):
you know exactly when your food willarrive the next day. You can live
track your driver on the day ofdelivery and essentially it you know, speaking
of drivers, we are fully verticallyintegrated, so everything from prep to cook
to delivery and even the collection ofyour containers. And we can talk a
little bit more about that. Wedo all in house and that's again a
(05:10):
key differentiator of what we're doing.You know, we're not having FedEx or
ups kind of you know, leavea box outside of your house. It's
a lot more intimate than that.Yeah, and and let's let's follow up
on that, because one of thethings that that's kind of neat about the
company too is that it's very green. You know, it's really a sustainable
model in terms of, like yousaid, you're picking up you're not creating
(05:31):
more more trash for somebody, butyou're you're picking up those containers, right,
Yeah, So it actually it actuallystarts earlier than the containers. And
a lot of folks aren't, i'dsay, as aware of what happens in
a traditional commissary kitchen, which is, uh, you know, how we
receive our ingredients, right, Sowe're we're receiving our ingredients in bulk,
(05:53):
ninety five percent plus of which comesin you know, cardboard boxes, which
we break down a lot different thanwhat happens at a grocery store with everything
individually packaged. So there's some inherentsustainability built into you know, a larger
scale commissary kitchen. But when itcomes to you know, our packaging and
the way we deliver our food.We actually have a partnership with this organization
(06:15):
called TerraCycle, and essentially this allowsus to collect and retrieve the plastic containers
that are used. So our customersessentially wash those containers and return them to
us. We pick them up ontheir next delivery, we return them to
TerraCycle, and TerraCycle uses these,uh, these containers, breaks them down
(06:38):
and traditionally into small little pellets,and you know, it could be used
for things like park benches or ifyou ever see those like little pellets or
those rubber pellets on like a likea like an athlete athletic field at like
a high school. So we're essentiallymaking sure that all of the containers that
we collect are going back and intocirculation. It's a big difference than what
(07:00):
happens in like a landfill. Right, A lot of these containers and plastic
don't they are there, aren't sorderedproperly, they don't end up being recycled.
I think about ten percent of allplastic that goes into a landfill is
recycled. So we're ensuring that thatnumber is a lot a lot higher,
probably close at our one hundred percent. And we also collect our reasonable insulated
(07:20):
bags and ice packs, so wetake them back, we sanitize them,
we put them back into circulation.So a lot of sustainability, a lot
of reduced waste and built into theoperation. That's terrific. That is definitely
one of the ways that I thinkFeast and Fettle must be unique. So
what are some of the other thingsthat make you unique in in today's business
(07:42):
environment? It may sound simple,but our product quality in our customer service
is second to none. And it'sa lot harder to communicate that vocally.
You're right, like, you haveto try the food to understand that.
But it's real, you know,when it comes to the stringent you know
ingredient requirements. When it when itcomes to what we allow in our kitchen,
right like, there's you know,the list over two hundred things,
(08:03):
no presertives, no antibiotics. We'reusing high quality ingredients that you would get
at call it a traditional hole foods, right, So we're using very high
quality ingredients. We have professional chefsthat we hire, We have extremely tight
processes around how we produce things,tons of quality checkpoints and you know what
we are food business, and wemake mistakes. And so the way we
(08:24):
look at it is when we makea mistake, it's an opportunity to really
showcase who we are as a brand. I mean, there's been times in
the past where I've delivered a cookie, you know, an hour away at
ten o'clock at night because that customer'skid really wanted that particular cookie. But
this is what we did when wewere small, and we're larger now and
we still do those things. Soit's just the level of customer care and
(08:46):
attention to detail that really separates usand allows us to continue to differentiate ourselves
because this into the crowded space.Yeah, and you've grown a lot,
as you just mentioned, So howmany people do you employ right now at
Feast and Fettle? We have onehundred and seventy employees. That's a big
operation. And how many subscribers justabout seven thousand. That is great.
(09:09):
That really shows that the that theneed is there. So that also shows
what an economic engine you are.One hundred and seventy people is a pretty
decent sized company in Rhode Island here. Yeah, it's a little while to
think about. You know, justa couple of years ago that number was
closer to twenty five thirty people.We've done a lot, particularly on the
(09:31):
human resources and people's side of things. You know, we're hiring a lot
of folks that traditionally come from restaurantbackgrounds that are strenuous. It's tough,
right that business, the hospitality andrestaurant business is a very very tough business,
and you know, we're we're reallydoing our best to change the narrative
around that when it comes to howour culture and our people operate. So
you know, if we hire achef, that individual has you know,
(09:54):
a very fixed schedule, right,which is you know a very different thing
for them, right Like, hey, you actually have a real schedule.
You know, all of our stafftwo days off at least, we're depending
on when this airs. We're movingto a four day work week, so
you know, that's another thing thatis definitely you know, we're pioneering in
the hospitality space. You know,our folks get full benefits. They also
(10:16):
all get a full meal plan forthem and their family. So we want
to ensure that we offer the bestto our employees. So we attract and
maintain the best talent, and thatrequires an investment, and we invest in
our people. It sounds like agreat environment. So you're hiring, Now,
what kind of positions do you haveopen? Wow, you have a
lot of a lot of positions openingacross the business, from all the way
(10:41):
from line cooks to production chefs toa baker to on the business side,
we're hiring a new engineer, We'rehiring on the marketing side, and the
biz dev team, so across theboard we're bringing on new folks. That's
great, and I would assume allthe info on that is up on the
website, right. Yeah, wehave a careers page on our website and
(11:01):
all of our positions are listed there. And if you're looking for a role
or position, check frequently because youknow we're constantly hiring new books, new
and new roles. Right. Wetalked about your green initiatives and and I
know that's something it's important to thecompany. What are some of the other
philanthropic or what are some of theother causes that company is interested in and
(11:22):
helping out with. The big onefor us is a partnership that we established
back in twenty eighteen with an organizationand called Adizia. So Adizia is also
based in Rhode Island, and Icall it Rhode Island's best kept secret.
Not a lot of folks know aboutAdisia, but essentially their mission is to
end child malnutrition across the globe.They have several products with Their core product
(11:46):
is this product called plumpy Nut.It's a shelf stable kind of kind of
being like a peanut butter taste,and they distribute that product. And when
I say distribute, that means they'retypically on the ones on the round,
working with local organizations to get thatproduct to the folks who need it.
And essentially this is a rehabilitation product, right, so these children are malnourished,
(12:09):
often in places that either are experiencingwhether it's warfare or natural disasters,
and getting this product into the handsof those folks that need it most.
And we've partnered with them against it'stwenty eighteen. We do one dollar of
every single order, and you know, it's been fascinating to watch what was
(12:33):
an initial small donation of like athousand dollars, uh, you know,
scale up to you know, we'redoing you know, about thirty grand with
them every quarter and so you know, it's it's it's it's starting to add
up quite substantially, and it's oneof the things we rally around here internally
because it's motivating. That is terrific. Carlos, what haven't we talked about
(12:54):
so far that you want to tellus about feast and fettle, and somebody
should definitely know, you know.I think when it comes to running a
business like this, there's a lotof moving pieces in the background, right
Like you're running a production operation,you're running a technology business, you're running
a logistics business, and there's alot of work that goes into that,
whether that's the person that's prepping outeverything or the individual that brings the food
(13:18):
directly to your door. I thinka lot of folks sometimes don't necessarily understand
the level of intricacy and detail thatgoes into every component of such a complex
business. And you know, asa CEO, as one of the founders
of this company, it's really fascinatingto kind of be able to deliver an
experience where it feels so seamless,right Like it feels like, oh wow,
(13:39):
this is so easy, it's sonice. And I like to sometimes
shout out I don't do this toooften, but like just shout out the
folks that are, you know,doing the work behind the scenes to make
those those moments a reality, andit's it's an important thing to highlight,
and you know, I just thinkit's an important thing for folks to always
(14:01):
remind themselves when, particularly when itcomes to the hospitality business. Yeah,
are you a food guy who hadto learn technology or a technology guy who
had to learn the food business?Oh, that's a that's a that's an
interesting question. I'm definitely more ofa tech finance business background. I had
the opportunity to live overseas for awhile in London, so I became a
(14:22):
foodie there where I was exposed toessentially everything, and I had no business
or no intent to stay in thefood business. And when I was moving
back to us, Maggie gave mea call and said, Hey, you
know, I'm doing this, youknow, Feast and Fettle thing or really
small would you like to pop onboard and take the leap? And yeah,
(14:43):
I'm glad. I'm glad that Idid. Yeah, it sounds like
a fascinating company. And tell usabout Let's run down the ways that somebody
can get in touch and find outmore about the organization. We'll start with
the website. Yeah, the websiteis www dot feast and Fettle dot com.
You could just google meal delivery servicesin Rhode Island, Mass cho sits
New Hampshire Connecticut. We're kind ofall over the web. Our Instagram,
(15:05):
Facebook handles are all the same theirFeast and Fettle, or you could just
contact me directly on LinkedIn Carlos Ventura. I'm pretty responsive there too, so
always looking to meet new folks andnetwork, and I also want to be
sure to mention that it's not justthe website. You also now have a
brick and mortar store too, sotell us about that. Yeah, so
we we've been thinking about going intobrick and mortar for a few years.
(15:31):
I can honestly say it's kind ofbeen breakneck growth for the past few years,
so we've kind of, you know, had the opportunity to step back
and say, Okay, get alittle bit of breathing room. What do
we want to do? How dowe want to continue to grow this business
and be able to serve more people, because we understand eighty five percent plus
of commerce, particularly in the foodspace, is still happening offline, and
(15:52):
there's a lot of folks that seeour vans that understand what we do.
But there's the natural hurdle of goingonline and being comfortable with getting this food
or this service delivered to your door. So we open our first retail location,
the Feasts and Tuttle Fridge. It'skind of like right on the borderline
of Patucket in the east side ofProvidence, right next to Wildflower Bakery on
(16:12):
a Hope Street. And yeah,we've seen a lot of success where we
kind of went into it with Idon't know we went into it with high
expectations, but you know, wewe were we were ready to pivot and
ready to improve upon that concept.And we're opening a couple more this year,
one in Newton, Massachusetts and anotherin Cambridge, Massachusetts. So we're
(16:33):
it's successful and we'll continue to pivoton that model. But yeah, you
can you can hop down to thestore anytime you want, give the service
to try and no, you know, there's no commitment, there's no membership.
You just shop there. You'll beable to try out the service and
also have a nice little interaction withone of our associates as well. Yeah,
I do want to come back tothe name Feast and Fettle. I
think a fettle is not a wordthat gets used a lot in today's language,
(16:56):
So I'm just curious how that howthat evolved into the into the name.
Yeah, so Maggie will probably tellthis story much better than me.
But when she was a little girl, her dad was the director at Roger
Williams Zoo, and there was thisevent she loved to go to every year
called Feast with the Beast, andso she knew feast was one of the
(17:18):
words that she wanted to use inthe title of the business. And this
is there's nothing sexy about this,But she just opened up a dictionary and
found a word that, like,you know, rolled off the tongue really
well, and feddle essentially means ofgood health, and so feast and Feddle
always just felt really, really reallygood. It was actually the first question
I asked when I was like,what does feedtle mean? But it's got
(17:41):
a nice little ring to it.It definitely does. Carlos Ventura is the
CEO at Feast and Feddle. Youcan find them online at Feast and Feddle
dot com. Carlos, thanks somuch for your time today. Appreciate talking
to you, and it's it's afascinating company, so we wish you the
best. Really appreciate it. Bill, Thanks a lot u
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