Michael Ray Robinov: Co-Founder + CEO Of Farm To People

The Stories: “Usually we'll hear from folks when they're having a big life event, like leaving the city. People will say, ‘you've been a part of my life for the past 11 years.’ Or, ‘I’m moving to LA. Can you recommend something for me there? Do you have any plans of opening there?’ The love is really wonderful."

“Am I doing a good job? What does competition look like? Are we telling the story as good as we used to? I used to pack a lot of the boxes; I cared about the quality. How do we make sure that those quality standards are maintained?”

The Backstory: “No doubt, the pandemic was this real accelerant for what we were doing. It really changed people's habits overnight. We had been trying to get press for years, then, suddenly, press was flocking to us.” 

“My father is a lifelong natural products and natural food entrepreneur. That was what I grew up around. I saw him building out these small-footprint, pre-Whole Foods kind of grocery stores, filled with natural products.” 

“The nice thing about being young and naïve is that I was like, ‘how can I make a million dollar business? The foolishness of that was what made it so fun, the possibilities so endless.”

Wisdom Rains: “What this is doing, at a minimum, is getting people to think about how their health is connected to how they feel and what they eat. We've become very disconnected with it, because people are no longer growing up in the kitchens of their grandparents, learning how to cook.” 

“Customers drive the innovation. Listen to the people you're delivering to. What do they want? That’s kept me busy for the past 11 years.”

On Inspo: “I always come back to and try to remind myself about why I’m doing this. What's really exciting and fulfilling to me, especially being a young founder in an industry where a lot of competitors raised a ton of venture capital and we really have no right existing, it’s been fulfilling to me to go back to the mission of, how do we take the food that I was selling myself at the farmer's market and seeing the issues of customers who would come to the farmer's market. I felt like if there was a few of them, there were many, many more out there who would want this kind of product. And my mission was how do we create this and make it something that is sustainable and profitable.”

On Farmers: “Our farmers are incredible. I think people forget this, but the farmer's job is one of the hardest. There are no days off. Food is something that is highly perishable, growing all the time.”