Andrew Glantz [00:00:00]:

Normally for fundraisers, when you have to raise thousands of thousands or millions of dollars, that's a lot of time, energy and funds in order to throw fundraisers and things like that with GiftAMeal for the food banks, it's a source of incremental, recurring and growing donations that can help drive change for these different communities all over the country. And so it's been really, really heartwarming to work with all these different nonprofits and I be a source of growth for them.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:31]:

Welcome to WISKing it all with your host, Angelo Esposito, co-founder of WISK.AI, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do. Welcome to another episode of WISKing it all. We're joined today by Andrew Glantz, founder and CEO at GiftAMeal. Andrew, thanks for joining us.

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Andrew Glantz [00:00:59]:

Yeah, thanks for having me on.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:00]:

Of course. So, first of all, for people that don't know, can you, in a couple sentences, explain what is GiftAMeal?

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Andrew Glantz [00:01:07]:

Of course. So GiftAMeal is a blend of community engagement and customer engagement for restaurants. Basically what that means is that each time a guest takes a photo of their food or drink at a partner restaurant, we make a donation to a local food bank to give a meal to someone in need of, so makes the guests feel good and helps the restaurant give back.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:25]:

I love that. I think I saw on your website, and correct me if I'm wrong, but about 2 million plus meals donated, is that about right?

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Andrew Glantz [00:01:34]:

Yeah, we just reached 2 million meals donated a few weeks ago. So that was something that was really exciting to reach that milestone, especially when you think that it's. No, it's easy to get lost in a number, but that's like 2 million people that are getting fed because of our partner restaurants and their customers that are taking photos.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:50]:

That's awesome. We're going to definitely jump more into, like, how it actually works. I'm curious of, okay, taking the picture, how does it work, understanding the model behind this and how that all comes together. But before jumping into that, I'd love to understand where the idea came from. Like, tell me a bit about your journey. Like, what led you to kind of founding GiftAMeal?

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Andrew Glantz [00:02:08]:

Yeah. I mean, I think that there's two different journeys that kind of combined together into one. One was my entrepreneurial journey and the other was my social impact journey. You know, from an entrepreneurial perspective, I've always kind of had that innovative bug, whether it was, you know, in first grade making origami to sell out of my little pencil box for a nickel or a dime or, you know, doing different things in order to build up different organizations that I've been a part of. And also, when I was growing up, I was really big into volunteering, whether it was for underprivileged children, for tutoring, or, you know, I helped create a summer camp for underprivileged children where they had a sleepaway camp where they could get away for a week of the summer to kind of have all the fun and food that they could want. And it was there that I got, you know, exposed to a lot of the kids that were facing food insecurity and heard their stories firsthand. And that was something that was really impactful for me. And so then, when I was in college, I was having an internship at a venture capital firm, and the managing partner exposed to me the idea of a profits of the purpose business model and doing well by doing good.

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Andrew Glantz [00:03:16]:

And I kind of combined my passions of entrepreneurship and social impact together into one and saw that for profits and nonprofits could really align their incentives and find business models that could support the two. And so I was on a lunch break with the other intern, and we were talking about how millennials, like ourselves discover restaurants and how there were a lot of financial incentives like coupons and discounts, but not a lot. That was really building an emotional connection with the brand. And we were looking to support socially conscious businesses. And so I kind of pulled from a Tom shoes Warby Parker buy one, give one model, along with the trend of people posting photos of food on social media, and tapped into the existing network of food banks across the country and put it all together into one for the take a photo to give a meal concept that we know and love today. And hired a developer and started to go door to door to some mom and pop restaurants and didn't even have a car then I was literally going up and down the street in the snow when I was in college. And between 02:00 and 04:30 p.m. to mom and pop restaurants, get early adopters, and graduated in May 2017, and then started to build it out in St.

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Andrew Glantz [00:04:17]:

Louis over the years, and then 2021, raised some funds to be able to build out my team and really expand nationally. And now here we are in about a thousand restaurants in 38 states and 2 million meals donated.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:28]:

Wow. And, you know, looking at your website, I noticed you guys obviously work with some local places, but a lot of really cool chains, like I saw chick fil a on there and TGI Fridays and, you know, amongst a ton of a red robin amongst a bunch of others. So really, really cool to see the success and impact you're having. I'd want to maybe for our restaurant listeners that are like, okay, this sounds interesting, like doing some good in the world, also helping the restaurant itself. Can you kind of explain a bit more on the product? Like how does it actually work? So talk to me about, like, I'm a restaurant, I'm interest, I'm interested. I'm like, this sounds nice. Sounds like a good concept. What does process actually look like and what actually happens? You know, like, talk to me about the implementation side.

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Andrew Glantz [00:05:11]:

Yeah, of course. So let me start with the customer experience and then I'll talk about what the logistics are of actually providing the meals.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:16]:

Perfect.

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Andrew Glantz [00:05:17]:

So for the customer experience, they order from a partner restaurant like normal. And then when they have their food, they scan a QR code off of a table, tent or other signage at the restaurant or in their to go bag to launch a GiftAMeal on their phone. They then snap a photo of their food, drink, or even a selfie. And when they do that, we make a monetary donation to a local food bank to help fund the distribution of a meal. Getting to someone in need in their community. So one photo is one meal, and then the guest is invited to share that photo on their personal social media. And we give an extra meal for each platform they share on. Since then, they're promoting the restaurant to friends in a positive way.

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Andrew Glantz [00:05:50]:

So sharing to Giftme on Instagram two meals. Giftme on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter x. Up to four meals provided and it's totally free for the guest. It takes them 15 seconds to participate. There's no app download or account creation required. And for the chains, we also can white label it to all be in their brand, colors and everything. So that way it really feels like a native experience because ultimately restaurants are paying for this as a mix of marketing, giving back. So we want them to get the credit of all this in order to really build that emotional connection with customers.

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Andrew Glantz [00:06:18]:

So that's how it works from the guest standpoint. Really easy. Just scan and snap. The restaurants can also integrate GiftAMeal within their own mobile app. We have integration with Lunchbox. Thanks, Incentivio. Also with online ordering partners like Olo and guest feedback partners like Ovation and Tattle. And so the restaurant can really integrate GiftAMeal wherever they want from that experience.

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Andrew Glantz [00:06:40]:

But yeah, the QR code is kind of the core of where most people launch it from that's cool. From implementation perspective on the donation component, the restaurants are paying a flat program fee to be involved in GiftAMeal. So for an independent and dollar 79 a month, and then for a chain, it's discounted to as low as $34 a month depending on the number of locations. So that's how we make our revenue. And then for each photo taken, we're making a monetary donation from that program fee to the local food bank near that specific store to help provide a meal to someone in need. So even chain joins GiftAMeal, each individual store is matched to a local food bank in their community. So it's all hyperlocal.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:17]:

That's cool.

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Andrew Glantz [00:07:17]:

And each of these food banks has a meal metric, which is their cost, to distribute a meal's worth of healthy groceries to a neighborhood pantry. So when we say we're providing a meal, it's distributing 1.2 pounds of food or one meals worth of food from their facility to a neighborhood pantry. Typically, they'll showcase on their website. For every dollar donated, they can distribute four meals, those in need, or five meals or three meals. On average, about twenty five cents per meal. So that's actually what's donated for each photo taken.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:43]:

That's really cool. And that's, first of all, congrats. It sounds great. Sounds like you're having some good success both on, you know, traction on both sides. So out of curiosity, is there obviously, you know, you mentioned a bit about the marketing side for the restaurants. I can imagine having, you know, hundreds of customers reposting probably help helps their business. What does that look like when they repost on, let's say, an Instagram? Let's take me, let's, let's make it simpler. I go in, scan it, snap a pic, post it on my Instagram and TikTok.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:15]:

What does the brand do with that? Does that just give them kind of like recognition in terms of my audience now sees it, or are they reposting it like, like, tell me a bit about like, just more the marketing side. I'm curious to understand.

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Andrew Glantz [00:08:26]:

That's a good question. So at the very basic level, they're getting a customer to share an authentic and uplifting experience with their friends. So they're basically turning you as the customer into a micro influencer. That's the most genuine thing. There's not a hashtag ad next to it and, you know, it's like your friends are going to trust your recommendations. So you post it out. The restaurant can then be tagged in that post as well. We auto suggest a tag for the business.

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Andrew Glantz [00:08:50]:

And then a lot of our restaurants do a great job of responding to those to create that extra positive touch point. Like, Snarf Sandwiches has 35 locations, all on GiftAMeal. And they do a great job of replying back and having fun with the responses, too, to really elongate that positive guest touch point.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:06]:

That's cool.

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Andrew Glantz [00:09:06]:

And make them feel that sense of emotional connection. But it really goes beyond just the social media posting. From the marketing standpoint, if you're looking behind the scenes at GiftEmile, from a behavioral science standpoint, the guest, through using GiftEmile, is feeling that sense of emotional connection to the brand and a sense of gratitude for the brand because it's free for the guests and funded by the restaurant. They feel that sense of gratitude, but they also feel good about themselves because they triggered this donation by taking a photo. But it's not too much effort to actually participate. So it's some effort where they feel good about themselves, but not too much. And so that combined with the restaurant funding, it really creates that sense of emotional connection. And we've seen that that's led to guests, on average, across all of our case studies, these guests are returning 39% more frequently.

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Andrew Glantz [00:09:52]:

They're spending 20% more per order, and they're tipping 32% more.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:55]:

Wow.

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Andrew Glantz [00:09:55]:

This is all with just a selfless incentive, no discounting or couponing. That cuts into a restaurant's margins.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:02]:

Super interesting. Those are. Those are really, really good metrics. I mean, one of the most important metrics, which you name, but is like, the percentage of guests are returning more than the first or second time, that's probably one of the biggest metrics to look at when you're running a restaurant. And the fact that you can. You can have that, you know, 39% effect for a second visit is. Is huge. That's.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:21]:

That's impressive.

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Andrew Glantz [00:10:22]:

Yeah. And, you know, when there's in an industry where, you know, it's like, like, 80% of customers aren't coming back. Like, 20% of the business is 80% of customers. And then you're like, how do I get the other 80% to keep on coming back? This is a great way to capture those guests, and especially for, like, Gen Z and millennial customers that really care about giving back, it's something that's really important in order to capture that demographic.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:45]:

I love that. I'd be curious because, like, obviously, though, you know, the way we're talking about it now, it's like, this sounds awesome. Like, there's not too much friction. The fact that you didn't do a mobile app, and it's like, you know, web, so you don't have to download anything. No. Lot. Like you're hitting all the points of like, oh, this sounds like a no brainer, which obviously is a great business to have if it sounds like a no brainer. So looking back to the earlier days, I'm curious, what were maybe some key challenges you faced in the early stages of GiftAMeal?

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Andrew Glantz [00:11:11]:

Yeah. And I mean, that's not to say that there's no challenges today. There's plenty of times where I'm talking to a restaurant and they kind of say what you just said, that it's a no brainer. And then they just get busy with other priorities. And that's just kind of the state of the industry that restaurants are busy. They have things with staffing and supply chain and, you know, just tech working from an operational level. And so even though marketing is a must have, sometimes it could be something that gets pushed back on the priority list. I think that's a challenge for us in terms of the grabbing the attention of a restaurant and getting it to implementation when we have that attention, and also just because things cost money for budgeting perspectives.

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Andrew Glantz [00:11:49]:

But in terms of the early day challenges, I mean, it was like that, but amplified because we didn't have those proof of concept numbers that I shared. I. It was all, like, theoretical, like sharing, you know, studies that were done generally about how people want to support businesses that give back and everything. But people took surveys and stuff with many grains of salt and were like, will this actually help my business? And, you know, no one wants to be the first big fish, especially for the chain restaurants. And so the way that we started to expand was, at first, we did mom and pops.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:20]:

Yeah.

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Andrew Glantz [00:12:20]:

Then we had a regional chain join with lion's choice with their 30 locations. And then I started pitching places outside of St. Louis, and they were like, okay, you've shown that this could work with one chain. We're based in St. Louis. That's our lines choices. And they said, okay, you can work with a chain, but can this work outside of St. Louis? And then we got a first franchisee join of Andy Sprozen custard, where they were half in St.

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Andrew Glantz [00:12:41]:

Louis, half in the Carolinas, and then was like, oh, this can actually work there, too. And that helped us sign up our first national chain, and all kind of snowballed from there. And, you know, now we work with all types of brands, like 130 locations of Lee's famous recipe chicken or 114 locations of pizza. Factory or 238 gong cha locations or you. Some brands you mentioned, like, we work with franchisees of TGI Fridays and like Jimmy John's and that's awesome. Like a bunch of these other chick fil a and a bunch of other brands. Yeah, I think just, you know, restaurants are busy. That's a challenge.

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Andrew Glantz [00:13:14]:

And explaining things in a clear and concise way and capturing attention and budget and showing the impact is really what's key.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:22]:

I love that. And how do you go about measuring, let's say, the impact of GiftAMeal on these local communities? Right. Because you're in so many different areas and states and whatnot. So how do you guys think about that and how do you measure it?

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Andrew Glantz [00:13:33]:

So each of our partner restaurants has access to a GiftAMeal dashboard where they can see the impact that's being generated for each local food bank. So, like, for Lee Sigma's recipe chicken that I mentioned, for the 130 locations they're supporting, I think something like 30 ish different food banks of these different metros that they're a part of. And so they can track the impact that's generated for each community that they serve. So with GiftAMeal, they're getting a unified giving solution that also is local. So it's something their franchisees and staff and customers can really get behind. For us as a company, not just for thinking about our partner restaurants. We're supporting 135 different food banks across the country now in 38 states. And so when you're looking at how we're measuring that impact, that's enabling these food banks to have not just the money, but also the staff time in order to dedicate to their programming and everything.

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Andrew Glantz [00:14:27]:

Normally for fundraisers, when you have to raise thousands and thousands or millions of dollars, that's a lot of time, energy and funds in order to throw fundraisers and things like that with GiftAMeal for the food banks, it's a source of incremental, recurring and growing donations that can help drive change for these different communities all over the country. And so it's been really, really heartwarming to work with all these different nonprofits and be a source of growth for them.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:55]:

That's great. By the way, I love what I'm hearing. How do you think about like, or how do you, I guess, gauge key metrics in terms of success of GiftAMeal? So, like, that's super interesting to see how you measure the kind of local impact side. But like, how do you know if restaurant x is, you know, getting a lot out of GiftAMeal? Like, I love to think about some, maybe KPI's. You look at when and deciding if a restaurant's successful or not.

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Andrew Glantz [00:15:20]:

I mean, the number one metric is just are people doing it? You say are people taking photos? How many photos are they sharing on social media? And then also qualitatively what they're saying in their captions and sharing out. And also something that's cool is that in the restaurants GiftAMeal dashboard, they could access all the photo contents and they have the rights to that photo content to use on their social media. So GiftAMeal is also kind of a byproduct to gift. A meal is a library of user generated ads, which is, yeah, it's pretty sweet for, it's like, you know, a treasure trove for marketers when UGC is like the most trusted and authentic content out there. So yeah, it's cool to see that as well. So in terms of measuring the impact, everything in terms of usage, social media shares and impressions, looking at customer sentiment, scoring for the brand and like even through partnerships in the industry, like with Ovation for guest feedback, we have an integration with them. For Row Joe's deli, a 30 location brand where at the end of the GiftAMeal experience, we prompt them to fill out Ovation's guest feedback form. And we've seen that the guests that come from GiftAMeal, that originate from GiftAMeal and fill out their guest feedback form are on average giving that restaurant a 4.9 out of five stars for their satisfaction.

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Andrew Glantz [00:16:37]:

And already they're getting great readings from other. But you know, if you can get an extra half a star or a third of a star boost, then that's something that makes a really big difference. And get also the GiftAMeal customers were more likely to write a positive review for the business on Google and Yelp. So taking a step back, when you look at the KPI, you know, GiftAMeal is doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. It's more likely to write positive reviews, more likely to have higher guest sentiment, scoring social media shares, and then also things like I mentioned earlier, like the visit frequency check size, tip size. And so when you're doing good for the community and you're making customers feel good about themselves, that leads to a lot of good things for the business.

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Angelo Esposito [00:17:14]:

I love that. And it's funny because at a quick glance, right, if someone was listening at the beginning, it's like cool GiftAMeal, great concept. Like helping the community, which is already great, don't get me wrong. But then as you kind of start uncovering these layers, you're like, oh, wait, we mentioned that 39% that guests that come a second time, and then loyalty and then the star ratings, and you kind of start looking at all these things and it's like, wow, it pays to do good because there's a lot of good that comes on the other side, which is really neat.

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Andrew Glantz [00:17:43]:

Absolutely. And I think that's something that I'm really passionate about, too, is spreading the word that these types of business models are out there, and business ideas where doing good can drive the bottom line for a restaurant in a way that just doing a selfish financial incentive might not necessarily. And it's not saying that something like GiftAMeal replaces all of those other options out there, but it could be a great complement in the marketing tools for a brand that makes sense.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:09]:

And out of curiosity, how do you guys think about selecting, like, a restaurant partner? Is it good for anyone and everyone that serves food, period? Or do you guys have certain niches or certain types of restaurants that you really do well with?

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Andrew Glantz [00:18:22]:

There's definitely some rest. The types of restaurants that are more likely to sign up for GiftAMeal, like quick service, fast casual, casual dining more than fine dining. Because if you're thinking about fine dining, if it's like a really low lit restaurant, even though it might be photogenic food, there's not lighting. Take a photo. And they might, if it's a white tablecloth restaurant, they might not have, you know, any signage up on the table that can prompt a call to action to take a photo and scan the QR code and everything. So, you know, more the quick service, fast casual, casual dining space, but also, like, coffee shops have done really well with GiftAMeal. Even like, we have a lot of franchisees of a drive through coffee shop with scooters, coffee, and they have, like, a window cling up in the window. And their staff are all super friendly.

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Andrew Glantz [00:19:04]:

And so it's like that same vibe as GiftAMeal, and it's another positive touch point between the staff member and the customer. So, yeah, I mean, all different types of restaurants and, you know, we work with independent restaurants too, but now we lean about 70% chains and 30% independence.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:19]:

Okay.

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Andrew Glantz [00:19:19]:

From just because it's, you know, for our perspective, it's a way to scale quicker, to work with larger brands and everything. But, you know, mom and pops are still kind of at the heart and at the beginning of the business. And so, you know, I talked with another mom and pop myself earlier today because I still think it's important to learn from these operators. Because I think you can also apply lessons from these independents to jeans and the reverse as well.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:42]:

Agreed. That makes a ton of sense. And what strategies would you say you kind of used to ensure maybe that the restaurants are continue to participate? Right. Like ideally they, when you onboard them, they start using it. That's probably your, I would imagine one of the most important metrics is like time to, like actually the value of actually starting to use it. But how do you think about kind of maintaining that to make sure like over time, six months in a year and that there's still kind of, of using GiftAMeal and on top.

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Andrew Glantz [00:20:11]:

Of it, I mean, to launch GiftAMeal, it takes a brand two to four weeks max.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:14]:

Okay, that's fast. Wow.

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Andrew Glantz [00:20:16]:

Yeah. So it's really quick. I mean, if the brand wants to wait longer and, you know, there's planning in advance for their budget for next year, they can do that too. But we have it really seamless on our side and there's no extra effort for staff to launch the program and then for retaining that restaurant. It's really about continuing to show the value, like you mentioned. And we give our restaurants monthly updates so they can track the progress over time and then they can continually see the impact generated in their GiftAMeal dashboard for their business and their communities and just making them feel good about what they're doing and seeing that cumulative impact grow over time. And then also developing that long term relationship with customers where they're really developing that emotional connection with the brands, where they think, when I think of this brand, this is a socially conscious brand. So in a competitive restaurant industry, this restaurant is going to stand out in my consideration set where I'm deciding where to go.

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Andrew Glantz [00:21:07]:

And so GiftAMeal isn't just a one off, give back, benefit night type of thing. Instead, it's something that's inherent to that brand's identity and that's something we've seen that's actually led to a lot of these positive case studies. And in terms of like the visit frequency check size, tip size and all that, is that there's an impact created over time when GiftAMeal is a perpetual part of that restaurant's identity.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:29]:

That's, that's awesome. And just that maybe shed some light. You know, we have a good chunk of restaurant operators and owners listening in on this. And so what does the process maybe look like at a high level? I'm sure it's different if it's a big chain or a smaller. But in general, can you maybe walk through the typical process for a restaurant to maybe join, GiftAMeal. You know, they go to your website, they like what they see, what happens. What does that look like?

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Andrew Glantz [00:21:52]:

Yeah, so I'll talk through from an independent and a chain for an independent, they literally go to giftemeal.com partner. They can click join now and they can sign up. We would ship them some promo materials and then, so they do that at $79 a month. They sign up, we ship promo materials, they launch within a week, easy. There's also the option for dollar 69 a month, so dollar ten of savings if they decide to print their own materials as well. But we offer the option of us providing pre printed materials to try to make it as turnkey as possible. So for an independent, they can launch super fast for a chain, they sign up again, giftemeal.com partner. They sign up, provide a list of their locations and payment info on the sign up form, set a start date, then they let us know what type of promo materials they want to use for the program, whether it's a counter stand or a table sticker, or something printed on the menu, or whatever type of signage they want, or coaster or a bag stuffer or something like that.

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Andrew Glantz [00:22:54]:

And then our designer is offered up to the restaurant free of charge in order to create branded promo material designs for them. So again, try and take off the.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:03]:

Work for the restaurant.

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Andrew Glantz [00:23:05]:

Yeah, our designer creates different designs for them. The restaurants then responsible for printing and distributing those materials. And whenever they arrive, then we can launch the restaurant. So typically that's the two to four week period I mentioned earlier for a chain restaurant to join GiftAMeal. And so it's something that super quick and easy. And we also have a PR firm on that we utilize as well proof PR who's amazing. And so, you know, for those larger restaurants, when they join, they can help make a big splash for the launch and everything as well. So that's always exciting to see too.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:33]:

That's cool. And you kind of touched on it just at the end there, but I was actually just about to ask, so. So if that was it, that's cool. If there's more, I'd love to know, how does GiftAMeal, let's say, integrate with the restaurants existing, you know, marketing strategy? I'd love to hear maybe some examples. And you kind of just touched on the PRs side, which is exactly where my brain was going, but I'd love to hear it from you.

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Andrew Glantz [00:23:51]:

Yeah, so I mean, from the pr side, that's something. That's great. I just got an email earlier today. From the email marketing specialist of Groucho's deli who's like sent me an email she's going to send out tomorrow morning to their email list showcasing that they provided over 30,000 meals to those in need and thanking their customers for that. And so for even the customers that didn't participate in taking a photo, they feel like they're a part of a brand that's giving back and it's a way to kind of boost that engagement rates on email as well. So they're using it in email. There's brands like Pizza Factory that are posting on their Instagram story multiple times a week with that user generated content that the photos being posted from GiftAMeal. So they're kind of having compliment there.

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Andrew Glantz [00:24:32]:

There's restaurants that post graphics once a month about how many meals they provided to give updates. There's also, as I mentioned, we have integrations with these other food tech providers in order to have GiftAMeal be seamlessly integrated. Like least famous recipe chicken has a GiftAMeal button within their own mobile app as well. And so that's something that's super seamless. And again, because we want the restaurant to get the credit for all of this, so we really look to complement their existing marketing strategies and give them the assets available to really make the most of their experience and GiftAMeal to boost their other marketing strategies while also providing an effective complement.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:13]:

I love that. I love that. And any, any examples you can give, you kind of touched on it, but I'm super curious on the social media side as well. Like have you seen any brands these pretty interesting stuff when it comes to their restaurant social media presence.

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Andrew Glantz [00:25:25]:

Like, I think there's some really cool stories that are being told by restaurant customers or being had by restaurant customers every day and being told by those customers too. So being able to capture and share those stories. For instance, at Scooters coffee a few months ago, there was an one four year old woman that GiftAMeal with her carmelicious coffee from scooters. I think her great granddaughter helped her out with it. But one four year old taking the photo on GiftAMeal and sharing that out. Or there was a woman who shared out a photo last month from Lee's famous recipe chicken who has 1.5 million followers on social media. And she's somebody who has had like a very unique dwarfism condition and she's somebody who's very positive and spreads the good word about things. And you know, she was sharing the good word about Lise doing GiftAMeal all of her followers.

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Andrew Glantz [00:26:20]:

And so, you know, taking these customer moments that are really something that's special and that's what restaurants are all about. Creating memorable moments with friends and family and these positive experiences that enhance our day to day lives and finding those stories to share out about the brand. So people don't think about it as just a transaction, but they think about this brand as being something that's an additive part of their communities.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:45]:

That makes a ton of sense. And, like, I'm getting a real good complete picture now. It's really, like, for the most part, a no brainer. I want to go just a bit deeper on the restaurant local giving side. So I want to understand more, like, just the logistics of that, because everything else is crystal clear and, like, sounds really easy to set up. The printing, the scanning, the social media side, the roi, the integrations. Like, it's all making a ton of sense, marketing efforts, etcetera. And so, like, now when it comes time to the actual, you know, let's take that example.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:17]:

Hey, over this year, they gave out 30,000 free meals. What do the logistics look like? I know we touch on a bit, but I want to. I want to get a bit of a better understanding. Is the restaurant actually preparing those meals and giving them out, or who? Who? And how is that side working? I want to get a bit more clarity there.

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Andrew Glantz [00:27:34]:

So there's no food prep or logistics required for the restaurant. Providing a meal means 1.2 pounds of healthy groceries that are donated by supermarkets and food drives and food distributors is being distributed to a pantry. And so basically, on the first of every month, our system tallies up how many photos were taken at each restaurant location and which food bank it's attributed to. And then each food bank has a meal metric to say, hey, it costs them when they distribute in bulk for, you know, the cost of trucking and labor and refrigeration, it costs them twenty five cents to distribute meals worth of groceries to the food bank. So four meals per dollar donated, or $5 or whatever it is, we multiply the number of photos times that meal metric that's provided by the food bank, and that's just standard. And then make a monetary donation to each of these 135 different food banks across the country. So zero logistics required, for that matter.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:24]:

Thank you. That's great. Great. I'm happy with clarify that because that's, that that was, like, my one kind of gray area where I was like, how does that side work? Are they doing it? Or is it just the monetary donation? But that makes a ton of sense.

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Andrew Glantz [00:28:35]:

And to clarify, we're not the ones coming up with this meal metric. This is something that all the food banks use as a standard. And their meal metrics might be different based on their operating costs, but that's something that's already out there and that's been proven out and that's validated and calculated. And our innovation was just connecting that meal metric to the act of taking a photo.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:56]:

That makes sense. I love that. Of turning pages. What's next for you guys? Right? Thinking about the future of gift, Emile, anything you want to share with our listeners of kind of what's next and where you're heading?

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Andrew Glantz [00:29:08]:

Yeah, I mean, I think that when we're looking at the future of gift, Emil, we're looking to see how can we continue to make it easier for customers to engage with a restaurant social responsibility. And, you know, we're playing around with a lot of different ways to do that. Whether it's with NFC tags as a way, instead of a QR code where you can just tap a signage, or to launch Gift to me on your phone in case a restaurant has QR code fatigue, we're going to be playing around with that technology and see if that's feasible from a cost perspective for material printing and distribution. And then also from a tech perspective, playing around with things, maybe with some different causes, like if a restaurant wants to support veterans and military families in particular. I had a call with an organization earlier this week that was interested in being a beneficiary of GiftAMeal in that capacity. So seeing how GiftAMeal can not just be helping local food banks, but these other organizations as well, that a restaurant might have a close tie to from their founders or something like that. And beyond that, we're really looking to say, hey, we've taken this model, we've proven it out, we've proven this with a lot of different restaurants, and now we're ready for more partnerships in order to support more restaurants around the country, both for their business and each community that they serve and see that meals number go up from 2 million to 5 million to 10 million. And our partner restaurants, we would love to be in 20,000 restaurants instead of $1,000 thousand restaurants.

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Andrew Glantz [00:30:33]:

And it's kind of as a startup, you're always de risking yourself further and further improving yourself out. And I feel like we've done that at this point where we're ready for a thousand location restaurant to sign up tomorrow, and we've built it all out to be able to handle that type of traffic and be able to deliver the value.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:50]:

I love that. And I guess, you know, one way we always like to wrap up is just any, any ways we can just plug you guys. So really website, if you have your own podcast, you have LinkedIn, whatever you want. But no matter what, we'll also put this in the description. But just for our listeners who are maybe just listening in and not on their computer or their phone, anything you want to plug, this is your chance. The floor is yours.

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Andrew Glantz [00:31:13]:

Awesome. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, I mean, if somebody is a restaurant listening, if they go to giftameal.com partner, they can see more information or giftameal.com demo and we'll set up a 15 minutes zoom demo to dive into the specifics of the program and showcase how it works a little bit more in depth and everything too. So giftameal.com partner giftameal.com demo and if you want to see more and you can follow us on social media at giftameal, on all the social media platforms and everything. And if you have any questions, you can feel free to reach out to us@infoiftameal.com to ask any questions to us and yeah, and then just thank you so much for the opportunity to come on here and I really enjoyed the conversation and all the insightful questions.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:59]:

No, it's been a pleasure. Honestly, Andrew, it's great. It's really cool to hear what you guys are doing. It makes a ton of sense. And even on our end, I'm sure we'll be able to do some cross marketing. So like we'll follow up with you guys, but I love what you guys are doing. So even maybe on our next email blast, we could plug you guys in there and maybe get you some potential leads. So we'll be talking more about with that said, andrew, thank you for joining the WISKing It All podcast, for sharing your journey.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:24]:

Entrepreneur where you guys are at 2 million meals plus deliver. Next time we speak, you might be at five, you might be at 10 million. So it'll be exciting. But thanks for being on once again. Founder and CEO at GiftAMeal, Andrew Glance. It was a pleasure having you on today.

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Andrew Glantz [00:32:39]:

Thanks so much.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:40]:

Feel free to check out WISK.AI for more resources and schedule a demo with one of our product specialists to see if it's a fit for.

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