“I’m grateful for our partnership. It feels like we’re one team, all owning projects and working together.
I feel really good”
Joy Rubey founded the local-first meal kit, Acme Farms + Kitchen, in 2011 to serve families in Western Washington and Northern Oregon, working to address two known issues:
Food waste coupled with a lack of farmers' access to a wider market and a lack of community knowledge and understanding of how to create and eat local, nourishing meals.
Since its inception, Acme Farms + Kitchen has moved over $22 million in local food throughout its community. Knowing that the desire for a vibrant food community exists nationwide. Joy and her team partnered with Forte to help scale the original Acme model to new markets.
The primary challenge was to expand the ACME Farms + Kitchen model to a new market, further developing a repeatable and scalable ecosystem that helps communities access fresh, deliciously tasty food that has been produced locally and regeneratively.
To address this client’s challenge, we provided a comprehensive solution tailored to their specific needs.
approach
Our approach included support across the company’s entire ecosystem including:
Market Research
Brand Identity Development
Vendor Selection & Management
From the beginning, our teams collaborated weekly, first crafting our roadmap and identifying teams to tackle each milestone, working through challenges, and bring a local-first meal kit to the Front Range.
IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS
>Market Research
>Roadmap Development
>Financial Modeling and Bookkeeping
>Brand Identity Development
>HR & Personnel Development
>Vendor Selection & Management
>Collaboration
results
The results of our collaboartion with Acme Farms + Kitchen/ Spade & Spoon was highly successful:
- Through partnership and strategic planning, a scalable expansion model was developed, tested, and continues to be refined.
Spade & Spoon has made a home in the Front Range, delivering over 300 meals to families each month (and increasing!)
In conclusion, our partnership with this client not only solved their challenge of wanting to expand to a new market, and also laid a foundation for ongoing expansion and operational excellence.
We collaborated with the Acme Farms+Kitchen team to learn from their previous experiences and our market research to build a comprehensive roadmap for Spade & Spoon that detailed high-level and week-by-week actions needed per area of expansion.
MARKET RESEARCH
We conducted extensive market research to identify the best potential new markets, including demographics, regional producers, warehousing, permitting, vendors, and community events and culture. This work refined our focus and was critical in decision-making.
Our team provided dynamic financial models that included KPIs and goals, allowing the business partners to easily track the momentum of Spade & Spoon.
Financial bookkeeping support continues with processing payroll and managing the day-to-day books for Spade & Spoon.
Brand identity & Development
Guided the Acme Farms + Kitchen team through a brand identity development process that included naming the new company (Spade & Spoon), developing the mission, vision, core values, and marketing personas.
We developed a dynamic role chart that shows the current team, current needs, and potential growth of the Spade & Spoon team, supported by job descriptions and personal scorecards that bring transparency and support to each role.
Vendor selection
& Management
Our team of experts worked with the client to update existing tools and platforms, research and identify new ones as needed, and support the implementation of the different platforms required. This included operational vendors and platforms (financial, delivery tracking, data management) as well as identifying and building the roster of local vendors and partners for Spade & Spoon. These local vendors, producers, and partners are what makes Spade & Spoon a reality
The success of this project relied on close collaboration between our experts and the client. Regular meetings, feedback sessions, and knowledge sharing were integral to ensuring the solution aligned perfectly with our clients needs.
