vegetable + butcher Delivers Over $750k in Meal Kits and Reaches New Locations with Nash

When Ariane and Turner, founders of vegetable + butcher, created the meal kit delivery service to provide more time for themselves and their customers by eliminating the need to shop, prep, cook, and clean, they envisioned a healthier and more sustainable world.

Established in 2016, the meal delivery service serves the greater Washington DC area, and offers a variety of meal plans, including vegan and paleo options. Their mission? Make it easy and convenient for people to eat well and live a healthier lifestyle, all while contributing to a more sustainable world.

‍"We give time back to people; time to do what they love to do."

The Challenges

Michael Kelsey, Vice President of Operations at vegetable and butcher (v+b), oversees a large breadth of the company. He is often tackling problems or trying to build out efficiencies. When he came to Nash, he was trying to solve for two main challenges:

Maintaining the v+b Standard

vegetable + butcher is dedicated to ensuring that all of its 3000+ meal kit customers receive a reliable and high-quality delivery service that is consistent and punctual every time.

Although vegetable + butcher has their own drivers—many of them long-term employees—there can be a lot of turnover and those gaps need to be backfilled quickly. This leaves high-quality service difficult to maintain with traditional gig drivers, who don’t have the training that v+b likes to equip their drivers with.

Driver Availability During Expansion

To scale to new markets, it is essential that v+b has the capacity to cover their orders. Order fulfillment and business growth is an uphill climb in new markets if there are not enough available drivers.

How Nash Delivered

After trying other third-party delivery providers, vegetable + butcher decided that Nash’s flexible marketplace of over 500 providers was the best solution for its business goals.

By leveraging Nash’s marketplace of curated delivery providers, v+b fills driver gaps in new and existing markets and is able to offer a successful meal kit delivery experience every time to customers, all while tracking all their deliveries in a centralized dashboard and using Nash’s auto-reassignment feature to ensure that no order goes undelivered.

v+b & Nash in Numbers

7500+ Completed lifetime deliveries

300% 3-Month Volume Increase

99% Average delivery competion

100% Delivery provider availability

The Results

Providers with Training = Happier Customers

Thanks to the variety of delivery providers on Nash’s marketplace, vegetable + butcher was able to partner with a few that met their delivery standards. This high level of customer service and driver training is imperative for v+b’s mission.

‍“We quickly realized that with Nash, we were able to centralize and communicate our SOPs to third-party drivers in order to provide the same guidance that we give our in-house drivers. That was really attractive. Nash third-party providers provide consistency with what our standards are."

Expansion Support = Scaled Growth

v+b has impressive growth goals for the future, with plans to increase their weekly delivery capacity from 20,000 meals to 100,000 meals. Nash provides delivery infrastructure in new areas like Baltimore, where vegetable + butcher didn't have the density of drivers. v+b can lean on the Nash delivery platform to help them build the foundations of expansion.

‍“If we’re short on drivers, we can backfill with the other third-party providers that Nash provides with their dispatching service.”

Controlled Costs = Better Driver Pay

Consistent cost of delivery is necessary to forecast business expenses, and Nash provides pre-negotiated delivery costs for vegetable + butcher. This allows v+b to pay their internal drivers some of the most competitive local rates, and combat any driver retention issues with great pay.

‍“We can provide a good working environment with competitive pay. Retention was the biggest pain point for us, and Nash really helps eliminate a lot of that.”

Take Control of Your Delivery Operations

If you're looking to solve your business's delivery challenges and fuel growth, consider exploring the benefits of Nash's delivery orchestration and platform. Interested in learning how Nash can deliver for your business?  Book a personalized demo with our team.