Decades ago, and facing a powerful competitor, we created Balducci’s Direct-to-Consumer Division and launched a catalog that won almost every major award and was profitable from the first iteration. The competitor was sent scurrying away. A few years later, the new division sold for about $100M, leaving the family with their name, their store, and their lease – exactly what they had the day we’d first arrived.

Just very few years ago, we were invited by Balducci’s new owners to look at the store once more; this time paired with the great food chain, Kings. Together, these two food retailers were placed in the highest zip codes on the East Coast.

Over the next two years, we repackaged the two brands and developed a series of programs designed to take Retail Food into the next century by managing the values and needs of the top half of the market; values we could see were unmet by standard Food Retailers.

Our efforts were consistently successful, always selling beyond goal. But most of all, our work began a quest to create new solutions for Food Retail at the top of the market; solutions that can manage shrink and ripening food, and launch programs designed to deal with sustainability, equity, health, and wellness.

Most of all, we believe in a cultural appetite centered around the delight and surprise that can be found in the theater of Food. And we believe we can bring that excitement to Food Retail.