A new weekly meal service delivering local restaurant eats launched in the Sacramento market recently, with plans to potentially expand nationally.
Founder and CEO Darren McAdams will use his past experiences running similar companies to help make the new business, called Cräveble, successful. McAdams founded and oversaw FoodJets Inc., a restaurant delivery platform that eventually expanded to support grocery delivery. FoodJets was acquired in August by Apium Logistics LLC, a logistics company focused on grocery supply chain capabilities. The Teel family, which owns the Raley's grocery chain, are investors in Apium.
"From the start I wanted to change the way food was delivered. We've had different concepts over the years but (Cräveble) certainly fits into that," McAdams said.
Cräveble refrigerates and vacuum seals meals from local restaurants and delivers them weekly to a customer's porch in thermally insulated bags that are kept cold with reusable gel packs. The business is currently operating out of a commercial kitchen near Downtown Sacramento.
Customers can select from a variety of meal offerings from local restaurants that change weekly on the online platform. Delivery days depend on where a customer lives. Meal orders must be placed by a specific cutoff time, depending on location, in order for them to be delivered that week.
Currently the service is only being offered around the greater Sacramento area. The menu offers items from establishments such as Skip's Kitchen, Burgess Brothers BBQ, Cilantro's Mexican Kitchen, Queen Sheba Ethiopian Cuisine and Sampino's Towne Foods, among others.
McAdams said the company is unique from other food delivery services because it provides free delivery with no service fees or other hidden fees involved, just the cost of the meal plus sales tax. He said they are able to do that because of the way the business model is structured.
Cräveble essentially makes orders in bulk with the local restaurants. Because they only offer two to three meals from each on a given week, they are able to reduce their costs, which ends up being passed down to the customer, he said.
"We want to bring affordable local meals to customers' doors with free delivery and this was the model we came up with," McAdams said. "We are not having to deal with thousands of independent contractors with orders coming in that need to be fulfilled within 20 to 30 minutes, this is a much more streamlined approach with our bulk buying."
After building relationships with local restaurant owners for the past 20-plus years while running other food delivery services in the area, McAdams said he's been able to rely on those connections to quickly get the ball rolling on Cräveble.
McAdams said the service went live for the first time last week. While there were some family and friends that participated in the launch, the service also saw some new customers place orders and share positive feedback. The service provided over 310 items that first week, he said.
Cräveble currently employs about a dozen people, though that number will continue to grow as needs arise. McAdams said the local facility could see up to 100 employees, including drivers, once the business is fully operational.
The plan is to prove the concept in the Sacramento market over the coming weeks before expanding to the Bay Area in early 2022. After that, McAdams said they will look to expand in other "foodie" markets, including out of state.
