During the pandemic, chefs cut off from serving dine-in customers needed to find a way to pay the bills. One obvious way was through third-party food delivery, but that often meant high delivery fees and cold food.
So some Chefs started selling packaged foods, but that often meant creating their own website, heading to a farmer’s market, or somehow finding a retailer to sell their goods.
In other words, a lot of work.
“We realized there’s actually a lot of resources that exist right now for somebody to get access to a shared commercial kitchen space and to produce a good,” Nicholas Florek, cofounder of Here Here Market, told The Spoon in a recent interview. “But then they’re on their own to market it and sell it.”
In short, there weren’t a lot of resources for chefs and artisan food makers to get their packaged food products in the hands of consumers.
“They’re on their own to set up their own website or show up to a farmers market once a week. So that’s the problem we’re really solving.”
According to Florek, the typical Here Here Market customer is often a foodie or fan of the chef who is looking for specialty ingredients or maybe just something to snack on not typically found in the grocery aisle.
Most of their customers “aren’t doing core grocery shopping,” Florek said. “We’re playing in the area where you want to try something new, you want to elevate your cooking game, you want to host something and impress your friends.”
According to Florek, it’s not just those creating products who want a way for their products to make it to consumers, but the consumers themselves who are hungry for ways to support independent creators.
You can watch the full interview below with Florek. You can also meet him and hear more about the company when Florek and his cofounder Disha Gulati talk about the company at SKS 2022 on October 12th.
Get your ticket for SKS to see this presentation and hear from other food tech innovators today!
