Sarah Van Dell wants to offer office workers a choice beyond the depressing paper bag lunch or unhealthy fast food option. The "sad desk lunch" phenomenon while working at the Advisory Board Company inspired her to found Plum Relish, a startup aimed at providing a better choice.
"If people want really good food, they'll jump through all the hoops to get it," Van Dell said in an interview with DC Inno. "I know from my own experience what people want. They want better value, better tasting food that is still healthy."
On the surface, Plum Relish has a fairly standard kind of lunch service. Customers, individual or enterprise, pick the days they want lunch delivered. There are three different choices each day, and if you are setting it up for a group you can pick for everybody or set it up for them to pick individually. The menu itself is all cold food, easy to prepare and with options for gluten-free, vegan and Paleo diets and can include bread, dessert and other additions, all for $11 each.
"It's perfect because it's healthy but not too healthy, right in that middle spot," said Plum Relish co-founder and COO Amanda Leader. "And the portions are set to be filling but not overwhelming."
Washington, D.C. certainly doesn't lack for lunch delivery options or innovative food and beverage startups, something Van Dell acknowledges. But, that doesn't mean less demand for her brand of easy, healthy lunches, she thinks. Instead, it helps clarify what her company does better than any competitor, and what it (literally) brings to the table that wasn't already there.
The proof came even before the company started sending out food. The startup (then called Cozy Feast) raised more than $41,000 on Kickstarter before Van Dell started shipping out lunches last summer.
"One thing we learned is that hot food is hard," Van Dell said. "We want to be very specific in targeting customers. It's slower in scaling but more stable."
The company has served over 25,000 lunches at this point with lots of room to grow according to Van Dell. Companies, including her former employer, are eager to take advantage of the what she offers and at that price. The next step will be to really reach out to more such companies and ideally make it a habit for them to order from Plum Relish.
"We definitely feel like there's room for growth," Leader said. "The long term is what we're really about."
