Welcome to the Arena from ICR – Conversations with Today's Innovators & Business Leaders Jeff Grass, Co-Founder & CEO, HUNGRY – Feeding Innovation: A visionary app for a thriving food industry
During the pandemic, there was an eruption of on-demand delivery sites and apps focused on consumer convenience. Today's guest has built a strategic service that provides flexible opportunities for both their customers and their employees.
This week we sit down with Jeff Grass, Co-Founder and CEO of HUNGRY. It's the first ever platform that connects independent chefs to the catering and corporate food services markets while improving the lives of its chefs, clients, community, and team.
HUNGRY now operates in 13 U.S. cities, and is growing at triple-digit rates. The company has raised 60 million in venture capital from its investors, including food industry heavyweights, Walter Robb, founder of Whole Foods, Ming Tsai founder of Simply Ming, Seth Goldman's Beyond Meat and Honest Tea, and Dan Simmons of Founding Farmers Restaurant Group. From the entertainment industry, Jay-Z, Usher, and Kevin Hart, are also investors, and HUNGRY's venture capital investors are Sands Capital Ventures, Motley Fool Ventures, Evolution VC Partners, and Marcy Venture Fund.
Jeff was also a chairman and co-founder of LiveSafe, a fast growing venture-backed mobile safety and anonymous communications platform, which crowd-sources safety insights and actionable intelligence that safety and security professionals can leverage for better situational awareness, evidence gathering, and emergency response. LiveSafe was acquired in 2020. He's also Chairman and Co-Founder of BuySafe, a VC backed online trust company enabling businesses to rapidly increase customer trust and make online shopping safer for buyers, and more profitable for online merchants. Jeff earned his MBA from Wharton and has a BBA in finance and economics from James Madison University.
Highlights:
- Jeff talks about his earliest ventures and idea behind HUNGRY (2:57)
- The market for HUNGRY, and how they are disrupting the industry (4:13)
- Jeff talks about the structure of HUNGRY, how it works, and the pain point is addresses (5:39)
- How HUNGRY helps chefs (8:07)
- How they are able to offer this service so cost effectively (9:25)
- How Jeff put together such an impressive investor team (10:43)
- Their carbon-neutral delivery program (12:17)
- How HUNGRY has navigated the pandemic and inflation (14:09)
- HUNGRY’s locations, and their plans for future expansion (17:46)
- The team, and the company culture (18:59)
- The company’s growth rate and milestones (20:15)
- Jeff’s advice for other entrepreneurs (21:52)
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If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, marion@lowerstreet.co.