Measures to protect Rhode Islanders from infection with the novel coronavirus—closing restaurants to dine-in eating, limiting crowd sizes in public places—are, to be clear, necessary and effective. Still, small businesses often find themselves paying the price. Foremost among those are independently owned restaurants and cafés, which operate on thin margins already.
Feast & Fettle, the East Providence-based startup that delivers family-style meals directly to subscribers, has stepped up to fill the gap.
"The first thing we did was essentially ask our members, 'What can we do for you? What do you need during this time?'" Sarah MacDougall, marketing manager at Feast & Fettle, told Rhode Island Inno. "We've since added things like fresh produce, donuts, eggs and milk. A lot of our members are elderly and at high risk, and they're very concerned about leaving their homes. We want to provide them with as much as we can so they don't have to go to the grocery store at all."
In addition to the family-style meals it already delivers, Feast & Fettle has modified its order platform so members can select "add-ons" from local businesses. To date, Feast & Fettle has partnered with eight grocery suppliers and restaurants in Rhode Island, delivering milk from Wrights Farm, eggs from Baffoni Farms, bread from Seven Stars Bakery, New Harvest Snap Chilled Coffee Cans and food from Rebelle Artisan Bakery, Borealis Coffee, PVDonuts and Luluna Kombucha.
MacDougall estimates that since mid-March, when the coronavirus-driven shutdowns went into effect, Feast & Fettle has seen more than 50 percent growth in orders on its platform. The startup now has more than 450 subscribers.
The growth has led Feast & Fettle to hire more staffers at a time when other companies are forced to lay off or furlough their employees. Four new kitchen staff and four delivery drivers have joined the startup's team over the last few weeks, and many of those are people who had recently lost other jobs, MacDougall said.
"We’ve just been so fortunate that we’ve been put in this position where we can help, and we’re trying to do that in any way we can," MacDougall said. "We were built for this. We were built for delivery."
Beyond its own services, Feast & Fettle is working to help the Rhode Island community through donations. The startup has delivered food to health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus response effort at the Miriam Hospital, Rhode Island Hospital and Bradley Hospital. Feast & Fettle also has a partnership with Edesia, a nonprofit social enterprise that aims to address malnutrition, through which the startup donates $1 for every order once a quarter. For Q1 2020, Feast & Fettle made one of its "biggest donations ever" to the nonprofit, MacDougall said.
Feast & Fettle is not the only food delivery startup that has seen a significant increase in orders. Farmer's market delivery service WhatsGood saw a “sixfold” increase in orders on its platform over a single week last month: double the amount of orders, and triple the standard order size.
MacDougall thinks that even after the threat of coronavirus recedes, the habits formed during this time are likely to continue—people will want to order food and support their community while doing so, and Feast & Fettle is poised to handle that challenge.
"This will probably change things for a lot of people forever," MacDougall said. "It's extremely humbling for us to be able to provide for these people who are in need. That's not something that will go away once this is over."
