Consumers increasingly seek to spend their hard-earned dollars with businesses associated with worthy public, grassroots causes. That's excellent food for thought, right? One local entrepreneur thought so, figuratively and literally.
St. Louis resident Andrew Glantz says mission-driven marketing for restaurants is available through his online GiftAMeal program, which helps businesses and communities thrive together via the common goal of getting nourishment to those in food insecure situations. He launched the effort in the metropolitan region during 2015. The concept brought together restaurants and diners like two peas in a pod.
GiftAMeal works simply by participating customers taking and submitting photos of meals or beverages they order so extra meals can be given to neighbors in need. Restaurants pay a monthly fee to participate in the program.
Those wishing to assist just need to download the free GiftAMeal app. For each photo, GiftAMeal donates an average of 25 cents to a nearby food bank to cover the cost of distributing 1.2 pounds of healthy groceries to a neighborhood pantry. Andrew says some food banks provide three meals per dollar, or 33 cents a meal, while some food banks are five meals per dollar, or 20 cents per meal. The money is drawn from monthly restaurant fees, which start at $79 for single-unit operators.
Food customers can "earn" more meals for food pantries by sharing their participation on social media.
To see the helpful developments inspires Andrew, who in high school, helped raise more than $350,000 for an organization called Jr. Variety, a sub-organization of Variety STL and Kid Helping Kids. As a Washington University student, he says he co-owned a campus nonprofit that redistributed donated goods.
During 2022, CEO Andrew took GiftAMeal national, signing agreements with franchisees of Andy’s Frozen Custard, Red Robin, TGI Fridays and others across 27 states. Since that time, there are restaurants in 38 states participating in the program, including restaurant chains, independent eateries, wineries and franchisees.
"We now work with almost 1,000 restaurants, and recently reached a total of 2 million meals provided to families in need," shares Andrew.
St. Louis-based Operation Food Search is one of the program's largest monthly beneficiaries as a recipient food bank. Andrew adds that the group receives nearly $2,000 per month from GiftAMeal. "To date, there've been about $150,000 in all-time donations to OFS from GiftAMeal."
Examples of eateries or beverage establishments participating in GiftAMeal include: Crushed Red, Pastaria, Herbie's, Kingside Diner, Colleen's, Sugarfire Olivette, Wente's, French Creperie, Billy G's Finer Diner, Lee's Chicken and Lion's Choice.
"Giving back was always something that's been important to me, as I volunteered as a kid. And it's continued to this day. I wanted to find a way to make it really easy for people to engage with local businesses that care about their community," says Andrew. "So I pulled from the buy one, get one model, and the trend of people posting food photos. And combined them into one."
He says there's been a great response to this socially beneficial program. "I really like looking through the related posts to see all these happy moments. I think restaurants want to be involved in their communities, and restaurants at their core are at the center of their communities."
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"During Hunger Action Month, our goal was to provide 50,000 meals in those 30 days."