We recently connected with Jennifer Piette and have shared our conversation below.
Jennifer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
As a Maine-based corporate gift business that gives back, Narrative Food is currently an entirely different model from the business we ran for the first 12 years as a farm to table home delivery business — based all that time in Los Angeles! Our current activity was a side-line for years — that we did only by special request.
This side-line started several years ago when I picked up the phone and realized I was being called upon to create all the personal gifts for the CEO of one of the 5 major film studios. He wanted a recipe box of locally sourced products — all the makings for a supreme Sunday supper — to send to dozens of the entertainment industry’s most famous and powerful. “Can you do it?” the secretary asked a bit nervously (a prior vendor clearly wasn’t up to the job). “Of course, no problem”! Basically that’s what our farm to table boxes were: local ingredients with recipes. We went on to create gorgeous recipe boxes for this studio head — and a vegan version for the folks that didn’t want a roast beef in a box! The next year they called me again, and year three we expanded to both his Los Angeles list AND the East Coast list too — and the board of another illustrious company that was part of their portfolio – including gifts for individuals like James Cameron, and Elon Musk, and on and on. That’s the year we retired the “roast beef in a box”, and changed to only shelf-stable products! Far simpler! The 4th year, I was asked to create a box with all Connecticut products as the CEO enjoyed a home there. “Of course, no problem”! (Connecticut, here I come!) These were large orders with complicated bi-coastal logistics and huge expectations. So, at that time, we weren’t looking for other corporate clients — this one was plenty! Unfortunately by year 5, said CEO was no longer a studio head, and that was the end of that gig.
At that time, most of the year was devoted to our weekly farm-to-table home delivery boxes — we had our fair share of issues navigating wildfires, mudslides — and the day that my own home burned down in the Woolsey Fire (the show must go on!). Just your normal day to day problem-solving at a small Certified B Corp.
But then, the pandemic struck, and everything changed. You probably remember what it was like in the grocery stores. Nothing on the shelves. Everyone on lock-down. People were dying and afraid — nobody knew what to expect next. Overnight our volume doubled, the next day it tripled, and after a timely article about us in the New York Times, only a few days later our volume had literally quintupled. That’s when we had to stop taking on any new customers, and our waiting list grew to 500. We weren’t celebrating though — we were adjusting to life as front line workers now, packing boxes in the warehouse rather than confined to our homes — I felt responsible for my team and their health, and rather daunted trying to figure out how to literally quintuple our production capacity in a matter of days — when there wasn’t even a roll of toilet paper in the grocery stores. “Of course, no problem! We can do it!” That’s when farmers who had lost all their restaurant sales appeared on the horizon, we hired a larger team, we stayed in a solutions-oriented frame of mind, and together, we figured it out. Not only were we of service to our customers and suppliers, but we also donated boxes to different non-profit organizations.
I had zero time to figure out the math on any of our decisions during that fraught time, all I knew is that I miraculously had enough money coming in to pay the multiplying costs that were piling up on my desk. As the pandemic wore on we stabilized. We created some amazing boxes to keep up the morale of all those people cooking their way through the pandemic. And we polished up our processes. Little did we expect that by mid 2021, when the pandemic started to abate and folks returned to their favorite markets, they would drop off almost as suddenly as they had appeared. That’s when our volume, in the space of a few weeks, literally dropped right back down to where we were pre-pandemic. I’d seen dips before during summer — “Maybe folks would all come back when the kids finally went back to school?” I hoped?!
While things were quiet, instead of biting off my fingernails worrying about our increasing losses, I got to work building a new website for corporate gifting, which we had continued to provide for a handful of small organizations. The idea was gifts for companies who wanted their gifting budget to be impactful by supporting small batch makers and regenerative organic growers, donating to non profits, and using carbon neutral shipping etc. Part of our goal was to fulfil the B Corp “Designed to Give” criteria, where you give back minimum 2% to nonprofits.
Meanwhile, those home delivery families never came back in the fall, and the home delivery numbers still weren’t adding up — we still had way higher costs on top of a new Emergency and Disaster Loan we had taken during the pandemic to help scale.
Luckily, over the holidays, we fulfilled a fair amount of corporate orders through our new website. To solve the overhead issue, I had to vastly reduce my costs related to working with fresh food. I connected the dots. My way forward would be to cut all the heavy overheads of the home delivery service, and pivot entirely into gifting. The gifts ship nationwide, there are apps that automate the giving, and I could still do my favorite part: choosing the very best from all my favorite small batch makers and growers, and introducing them to a new audience. And so, our last home deliveries of 12 years of deliveries happened at the end of January 2022. In April we joined 1% for the Planet. By the end of the year we had made double the gifts sales as we had done in 2021. We had supported over 85 small scale vendors and donated nearly $5000 to non profits like World Central Kitchen. (See our Impact Report here).
And then, another twist of fate: in February 2023, we bought a farm in need of TLC, on Deer Isle, a working fishery community off the coast of Maine! We packed up the gift wrap and tissue paper and inventory, and our entire household, and took possession of a 200 year old post and beam barn and farmhouse from which we will now operate. We arrived here in February 2023, and are already getting to know small scale Maine makers, who we are so excited to feature in our boxes.
What is special about our gift boxes, is that they all tell a story. They tell stories of small scale makers with amazing craft; they tell stories of food traditions, regenerative agricultural practices, and upcycling; they are curated to tell a company’s story or celebrate a milestone with mindfully chosen products that reflect a company’s culture. Above all, they are made with love, each box hand-packed with deliciousness, stories, and future memories. Creating lasting memories around the table, and around food, is what gets me most excited. That, and the fact we are also giving back so others also thrive.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Narrative Food is an award-winning Certified B Corp and member of 1% for the Planet, founded in 2010 by Jennifer Piette. Always on the lookout for mindfully crafted small batch foods, we also curate them into beautiful gift boxes.
Narrative Food’s mission is to support small-scale makers, and increase our impact by giving back to nonprofits who are also working to change the world.
Over the years, we have built relationships with dozens of amazing food makers from diverse communities and we are excited to share their mindfully crafted offerings with a larger audience through our gifts and pantry box subscriptions!
Narrative Food’s delightful gifts tell stories of people and place, each one supporting a related non profit.
With a focus on creating custom gifts for discerning clients, we have a track record of creating gifts that wow stakeholders at every level of a corporate or non-profit organization. From Boards of Directors of national Fortune 500 companies, to high net worth donors from some of our favorite non profits, to staff gifts, virtual event gifts, and more. Everyone loves beautiful small batch foods.
Contact Info:
- Website: narrativefood.com
- Instagram: @narrativefood
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/narrative-food/