Keeping the American Dream Alive
Welcome to the 100th edition of Start-up Society! This blog highlights some of the most exciting start-ups in the country striving to keep the American Dream alive.
Make sure you check out the previous issue, if you have not already, here!
FamilyMeal
HQ: Red Bank, NJ
Founded: 2020
Employees: 5 (on LinkedIn)
For our centennial article, we continue the pace with another fantastic double feature. In Meet the Entrepreneur #24, we present a unique perspective from Peter Venti, Founder of FamilyMeal on the dynamic restaurant technology landscape.
Watch/Listen to learn how FamilyMeal is helping restaurant owners innovate, thrive, and deliver the best experiences to guests.
This article provides a summary of the conversation. For the full details, tap into the podcast here!
Meet the Entrepreneur #24 - Peter Venti, FamilyMeal
Listen to this episode from Meet the Entrepreneur on Spotify. FamilyMeal supports a drastically improved economic model…open.spotify.com
Meet the Entrepreneur: Meet the Entrepreneur #24 - Peter Venti, FamilyMeal on Apple Podcasts
FamilyMeal supports a drastically improved economic model for chefs and restaurateurs so that we can all focus on more…podcasts.apple.com
Tell us about your background, how you got interested in restaurants and what ultimately drove you to start FamilyMeal?
Peter grew up in New Jersey and was always in love with the culinary arts. He got his first cooking job at 14 and worked most of his life to become a professional chef. Over the years he realized that working in the kitchen is not as glamorous as it seems. This is of course well-documented in the hit Hulu series ‘The Bear’. This realization led him to decide to be a restaurant owner. He ended up studying finance and ultimately felt unfulfilled by his career in trading. He did however end up getting connected to the Alinea restaurant group in Chicago through his finance career, which enabled him to experience how one of the country’s most successful restaurant group operates.
After deciding that the traditional restaurant model is inefficient, he decided to rethink the process from scratch. Peter ended up managing and growing a consulting firm in the space that sold to one of their largest clients after six years. After the acquisition, Peter worked for the larger parent company before quickly realizing that he needed to start his own restaurant technology company in order to add value to the industry and live out his passion of working in the food industry.
FamilyMeal was founded in 2020, a period of rapid innovation within restaurant technology, what unique gaps did FamilyMeal aim to fill?
During the pandemic, restaurants were forced to try new things. FamilyMeal is more than just pick-up, dine-in & delivery. It is about catering, pop-ups, collaborations, nationwide shipping products, wholesale, meal prep subscriptions, and more. This platform is designed for restaurant owners to try new things and to be a flexible tool that is still discovering what is most useful for restaurants. Peter wants the restaurants to be the ones in control of the technology, not the other way around.
A common issue that restaurants have is marketing optimization. On the third party delivery apps like GrubHub and Uber Eats, we are seeing major multinational brands like Subway and Chipotle being marketed the most. It is difficult for smaller, independent restaurants to afford the digital real estate. FamilyMeal believes the biggest opportunity for them is to be a marketplace only for independent restaurants. These independent restaurants can be aggregated into groups and collectives that share data and customers lists can help elevate the whole industry.
What is the revenue model?
The restaurant is able to onboard in just 15 minutes. They need to connect to a payment processor and the fee is attached to the diner who is actually getting the food (3% fee at checkout). Once the marketplace is enabled for lead sharing, there will be a fee for the restaurants.
What is the biggest challenge you face?
Educating and helping restaurant owners learn how to use our platform is FamilyMeal’s favorite challenge. The biggest challenge right now is scalability, as FamilyMeal is currently providing a ton of human support and guidance to its growing customer base.
What are the biggest milestones you have accomplished?
The company measures its business success as human impact. Growing sales is secondary to helping restaurants thrive. While big investors may not like this, FamilyMeal boasts an unbelievable 90% referral rate.
What is your grand vision?
The world of food is changing. Peter feels the ‘food is fuel’ mantra is dangerous, with many treating food as nothing more than convenient sustenance. Peter sees food as a way of learning about different cultures and creating experiences. There is a lot of value in sitting down for a family meal!
Peter wants FamilyMeal to be your go-to destination when you want to order something special. With FamilyMeal, independent restaurateurs have a voice.
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Authored by Arteen Zahiri, Rumeer Keshwani, Elham Chowdhury, & Julian Ramcharan