Everyone should be eating insanely good local food.

A packed schedule shouldn't mean you have to eat junk food. Lettuce should be sold locally, not flown in by mega-chains. Nobody should live in a food desert.

The problem isn't lack of desire. The problem is that it's expensive for entrepreneurs to rent kitchen space, it's expensive to lease storefronts, it's expensive to run Instagram ads. Food expires. Chefs walk out. Uber Eats and DoorDash take 30% off the top.

If we want to encourage more farmers, chefs, winemakers, bakers, picklers, baristas, brewers, and pizza makers, then we need to help food entrepreneurs build strong and durable businesses.

"Strong" means food, kitchen, and delivery costs don't kill the business. "Durable" means there's a loyal base of customers who order over and over and over again.

The best way to build a strong and durable food business is to:

  1. Take orders ahead of time to cut down on food waste and labor cost
  2. Offer pick-up and delivery to skip expensive leases
  3. Get customers ordering every week (or every month) to maximize revenue

And the best way to take orders ahead of time, offer pick-up and delivery, and get customers ordering over and over and over again is by operating a membership-based food business. Memberships lock in loyal customers, facilitate pre-orders, and simplify the logistics of the business.

Thus, Bottle's 4-year plan:

  1. Unlock memberships for local food businesses
  2. Help people find and join those local food businesses
  3. Bring down the cost of supplies, delivery, routing, and marketing using density