Carter Comstock and Michael Wystrach, Freshly: Making it Easy to Eat Healthy – Well Made E59

“You become a logistics company, you become a procurement company, and all these things have to work to make sure we can get you a meal at the end of the day.”

Just a few years ago, on-demand meal delivery services were non-existent. Today, you can find brands specializing in everything from smoothies to family dinners. In a crowded space, Freshly is betting on healthy, heat-and-eat, pre-portioned meals. Since founding the subscription meal service in 2012, Michael Wystrach and Carter Comstock have used a growing cold supply chain to deliver fresh food direct-to-consumer, adopting and creating their own systems along the way.

On this episode, Michael and Carter share the secret to making fresh foods that travel well (2:11). With recent IPOs, acquisitions, and companies shuttering, Michael talks about the state of the meal kit and food subscription industry, and what it takes to be competitive in the space (3:22). They address some of the criticisms of meal delivery services (9:22). Carter talks about creating best practices for their cold supply chain (14:32). They talk about rebranding Freshly with early investments (22:26). Finally, they share the learnings that helped them pivot from a diet-specific service to a lifestyle food company (37:54) and what it’s like to work with Nestle (40:32).

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Header photo via Phoenix Business Journal.

You can find this and all future episodes on iTunes, Google Play, and here on the Lumi blog. This episode was edited by Evan Goodchild.