Member Monday continues this week with a spotlight on Mint Pattanan, founder and CEO of Rootastes. After moving from Thailand to Boston for graduate school, Mint founded Rootastes in 2016 with a mission to change the way office employees eat their lunch. Rootastes is designed for companies run by people who believe that taking good care of their team is smart business and the right thing to do. In addition to office lunch delivery, Rootastes recently launched their Fresh Baskets service. These weekly farm fresh baskets deliver a mix of fresh fruits, seasonal veggies and proteins plus local goodies. Rootastes is offering Branchfood followers 10% off their first Fresh Basket order — use code BF10 at checkout!

Read on to learn how Rootastes delivers tasty lunches that benefit every stakeholder. 

Prior to starting Rootastes, you worked in communications and marketing. What led you to start your company and how has your background helped Rootastes become a successful endeavor?

In Thailand, I worked in the Corporate Social Responsibility field, and it’s always good to learn how to do business that generates revenue to make profit and to care about all stakeholders that are involved. When I started Rootastes, I created a principal around how our work can benefit all parties that get involved in the business. 

For our clients, we always ensure a reliable service that they can trust to provide great meals that satisfy their employees during lunch. In addition to great taste, we care about delivering on time, providing adequate portions, and allowing offices to customize their lunches based on their specific needs. 

For our suppliers, we have a mission towards sourcing local ingredients whenever possible to support farm partners and use their seasonal ingredients in our menu. 

From day one, we’ve also cared about using biodegradable, compostable, and recyclable packaging. Because all of our orders are scheduled in advance, we have managed to produce nearly zero waste. When we change our seasonal menu, we also donate freshly prepared lunches to women’s homeless shelters to give back to the community and help those in need.

The key success is that we care about every party involved in this business, and we communicate that to our team. That makes them proud to be a part of it, and the customers can feel that we really care about what we do.

Rootastes delivers healthful, globally-inspired meals to corporate offices in Greater Boston. What solution are you providing to corporate offices and how did you refine this concept overtime?

We found several concerns for existing corporate lunch catering services. The person who is in charge of ordering lunch usually spends several hours a day to find a lunch provider for their team. They also have several requirements that they need to work with to ensure their employees are happy, such as a variety of meals, dietary restrictions, food portioning, being on time, and being able to communicate directly to both the food provider and driver. 

We spent time understanding these concerns and being able to improve our service so that there is not only a great product, but also service they can trust. They can leave this work with us and focus on something more important to achieve for the company. We believe a great lunch can create a more positive and productive environment for employees and deliver measurable results to a company's bottom line.

Corporate offices have largely been forced to shut down in the last few months, and are only just beginning to reopen. How did Rootastes handle this disruption to your business? Do you foresee any lasting changes to Rootastes’ model, even after we return to a new normal?

When the pandemic hit in mid-March, our first concern was food safety for our clients. We immediately switched our packaging from catering trays to individually-packaged lunch bowls with individually-wrapped utensils. So, our clients who still work in the office can maintain social distancing while enjoying our lunch.

We also saw the shift to grocery delivery, and that has allowed us to continue supporting our farm partners and local businesses. We pivoted to a new service called Fresh Baskets to deliver farm fresh produce, proteins, pantry staples, and local goodies to our clients home weekly. We have spent time talking to farm partners in the past months, and we are proud to say that the vast majority of our produce is now either certified organic or uses sustainable production methods. Our partners harvest to order in 48 hours, bringing a quality of fresh produce that’s unlike any other in grocery delivery.

We will continue to provide this weekly fresh produce delivery service along with the core service of corporate lunch catering, as we use overlapping suppliers for these two services. We see this helping to enhance our revenue streams in the future without affecting the operations.

Rootastes was a 2018 MassChallenge finalist. Do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs applying to accelerator programs?

Accelerator programs can be a good resource and network for entrepreneurs. My suggestions for other entrepreneurs are:

• Set specific goals before applying to accelerators — what you would like to achieve during the specific timeframe. 

• Seek advice from advisors in the accelerator that are aligned with your goals. Frequently update them with your progress to help you keep connection with them out of the accelerator program. Don’t seek temporary connections, but build a long term relationship with them.

The meals at Rootastes are inspired by seasonal produce from New England. Is there anything else that inspires you and the Rootastes team when planning menus or launching new products for your target market? 

We have spent a few years understanding consumer behaviors and needs so we can provide them with options that not only taste great, but are the meals they are really looking for. At first, we provided lunch options only for employees, but we found that sometimes our clients also needed lunch options for their clients or executive meetings. So, we created a product called Premium Lunch, which includes fresh fruit infused water, drinks, and add-on desserts. We also have other options, like the Chef Special Package, a special, seasonal menu with more variety, and the Monthly Lunch Plan, for companies that would like to book lunch orders in advance with the help of a Rootastes account executive. We will continue working towards the same core mission delivering ‘Good Food Promise’ to our customers using fresh and hearty ingredients from farm partners.

To provide fresh and delicious food in your Fresh Baskets and lunch delivery, Rootastes partners with many local farmers and vendors. How has being a Branchfood member helped you connect with the Boston food community?

Being a member at Branchfood has really helped us since the beginning on multiple levels. It is a central resource for seeking food industry advisors and connecting with potential customers. It’s such a great community of industry-focused individuals, which helps food entrepreneurs achieve their goals faster because we are able to utilize the right resources.

How can our audience support Rootastes? 

We launched our new Fresh Baskets service in April, and would like to introduce this service to the Branchfood community — feel free to check them out! We’re also offering a 10% discount for the Branchfood audience. Use code BF10 at checkout for 10% off your first order. We would love any feedback that can help improve our service to better serve our clients.

Thank you to Mint and Rootastes for being this week’s Member Monday spotlight. Are you interested in how a Branchfood membership can help you succeed? Learn more about our membership benefits, and stay informed with our newsletter. Be sure to follow us on Instagram for our next Member Monday takeover!