Food

2023 was the year that killed restaurants.

We promised to get real this year with more useful content to our hospitality clients and we're starting with the most sensitive topic amongst the food brands in our community. "The Year that Killed LA Restaurants"  was the headline for The LA Times, chronicling 

 and the grueling, bleak look ahead as we enter 2024. And it's hardly confined to California - it's something we're seeing in every city. 

92% of operators say the cost of food is a significant issue 

 National Restaurant Industry)

Since revamping our online presence, our focus has shifted to creating meaningful content and sharing the authentic stories within our community. This year, we're delving into the challenges faced by our community members and collaboratively seeking creative solutions. Sadly, we've noticed troubling trends in financial struggles, closures, and pivots within the food industry.


The past few years have been rough thanks to 

 who caused a roar of supply chain issues and inflation, labor struggles and a shift in consumer behavior. Now that government assistance has ran out, restaurants are in trouble. This is why we launched a series of content to address the root causes, shared stories, solutions and inspiration, but mostly


The increase in food brands suffering from a deficit is growing. There is evidence of problems industry-wide.

We have watched our clients in food products, hospitality, restaurants, brick and mortar, and wholesale share a common trait that is impacting their growth potential. Even the most attractive brands are suffering quietly behind closed doors. The causes are never ending:

(in 2023 we saw on average vegan down 9%, fast casual down 20%)

sales are down causing difficulty in other areas of the biz

Economically speaking, consumers are in a 

, influencing how they discover your brand, perceive its value, and make purchases. It's crucial to shift your approach from backend to frontend. We've delved into these factors and strategies for this significant shift over the past few months.


The Cause:
There is a negative delta between the financial projections and the reality of the brand's books.

Food brands often end up strapped for cash because they kick-started their journey (or year) with inaccurate financial projections. The root cause? A lack of financial literacy and false promises based on old growth models. Nowadays, food brands are luring investors with grand visions of scalability, deviating from the old model of modest, independent startups. The issue? Many pitch decks paint an unrealistic picture, and that's a red flag. Scaling is proving tougher than expected, and struggling businesses need to face the truth instead of perpetuating a cycle of fundraising without addressing core problems. It's time for honesty and strategic rebuilding.

#fff

#000

The era of rapid growth and massive paydays is fading. Investors, savvy and budget-conscious like the rest of us, are becoming more cautious with their money. Flashy projections may look good on graphs, but when actual business growth falls short, it leads to a 

. Big promises, desperate fundraising, cutbacks, quarterly struggles, repeat. The bubble in food and hospitality is bursting, mirroring the tech trend of unfulfilled returns.

This has been dubbed the 

 - both before the pandemic but especially since. Most know it as hockey stick growth. It goes something like this:

A company raises hundreds of millions of dollars and launches a new to the market concept that promises to “change the food system” →

Rapidly expands and gets buzzy press/social →

IPOs, achieving a big liquidity event for the original investors 

(Yet the sad reality is that most businesses don’t even achieve liquidity)

And yet, remains an unprofitable business

While we aspire for widespread change in food systems, it's crucial to acknowledge that food isn't like tech, with only rare exceptions. Check out 

Food Tank's list of 122 organizations driving change

 in the food system—few promise massive scale or attract millions in investment. Sadly, we observe many brands opting for quick fixes and poor leadership, rather than adopting sustainable practices for long-term success.

Here is what we predict to be the trend to break this cycle:

capital raised on honest conversations, smaller amounts for specific needs

less emphasis on categories, more on healthy brands and good leadership

healthy portion of capital generated by the business (rather than matching investors)


Unpopular opinion, but the right thing to do: focus on scaling 


From folks in the industry who are applying them real-time…

We need solutions so we started with our team member Advisor Chef Erik Oberholtzer, asking him how to break this cycle. 

 advises founders to “scale good behavior" - a less popular, but wise opinion. Establish profitability in your initial locations before seeking extensive investment to avoid the pitfalls of premature expansion. Stay true to your values, offer a unique product, and prioritize profitability, smart operations, and a distinctive "you factor" to prevent growth from becoming a perpetual struggle or leading to business failure.

. Tell your advisors, mentors and investors what is really going on, so that you can garner real advice. Jot down the offerings they share and become a student to rebuilding your brand. The food system is relying on you!

Let's ditch false promises, embrace vulnerability, and rebuild our brands together—because the food system is relying on us.


From Downturn to Solutions: How the Food Industry Can Thrive in 2024

Why aren’t there more people of color in our culinary leadership and how can we influence change in the landscape?

A couple years ago, Cohere co-hosted a fireside chat that posed a difficult question to our community of chefs and restaurateurs – Why are only 1% of Philadelphia’s Restaurants Black-owned? In a city where 43.6% of the population is Black, there was only one Black chef recognized in the 2020 top restaurant lists—a single example of the disproportionate amount of opportunities for black-owned food concepts and people of color in this space.

Out of that conversation came some solution-oriented thinking

The event caught the attention of many of our partners: creatives, entrepreneurs, restaurant owners and landlords. One of them reached out to continue these conversations, and for the last year and a half we have been asking questions to our BIPOC food community:

What do you need? What support do you require for your food concept to grow?

What roadblocks have you encountered when opening or expanding your business?

How does innovation impact your business during and after the pandemic? What are you doing to differentiate from the traditional restaurant model?

The answers informed our approach to the experimental programming we were doing at the Viaduct over the past 2 seasons. We wanted to give a space for budding entrepreneurs and brands who did not yet have brick and mortar space, to build equitable income for their next stage and get information real-time to help build followings, sell tickets, experiment with menus, etc. The results were often sold-out shows and dinners, and impactful partnerships for their brands.

Those gatherings at the Viaduct have now grown into more permanent space—a mixed-use development with a first floor dedicated to BIPOC-owned food businesses.

Together, Southwood Properties, The HOW Group, and Sterling Wilson collaborated to develop 

 in Kensington. Set to launch in 2023, the building plans include 139 apartments and 10 artist studios, a courtyard garden, and 6,500 SF of light industrial space for BIPOC-owned food businesses on the ground floor.

We’re excited to announce that the first partnership for the industrial space

, who will operate a community garden in the courtyard. The garden will invite people to volunteer and learn about urban agriculture, attend special dinners and events, and participate in FarmerJawn’s CSA program.

"This garden is a way for people to know where their food is coming from. I see food as medicine, so this is all about reimagining spaces for the betterment of the people." - Christa Barfield

There are other tremendous food businesses & entrepreneurs to share soon, and the symbiotic nature of their spaces within Jasper House is key to ensuring a strong support system.

From peer-to-peer interaction to financing, Jasper House looks to address consistent challenges in the community, to ignite further change. That includes the quickly transitioning area around this property, with large residential buildings and new creative professionals living in them.

Creating a Space for BIPOC Food Brands in Kensington

Packaging is the customer’s first impression of a product

It’s our job to make sure the packaging looks as great as the food inside it tastes.

Every element of the packaging – from its color palette to the materiality and message behind it – tell a story before a bite is even taken. Our restaurant friends come to us with the need to articulate their brand differentiators in a single take-out moment. Now more than ever this is one of the significant ways someone interacts with and shares a restaurant brand.

We start with the story behind the brand and their takeout and packaging goals. For HipCityVeg’s vegan fast food brand with many locations in DC and Philly, that meant returning to the nostalgic feeling of family meals at classic fast food chains, while incorporating a more modern and hip take on their popular plant based version of burgers and fries.

Environmentally friendly packaging is a key component with many brands, as consumers are eating more takeout than ever before. Most consumers are more conscious about plastic waste, and therefore we've found it is important to aim for cardboard, compostable and locally produced whenever possible. The messaging of your brand's packaging efforts is also key to communicate to customers on the packaging and in regular marketing content. Pairing the right message with the right packaging and content, and you begin to build awareness without compromising on values.

 and stylists to create animated stop motion ads, gifs and photography assets that help drive traffic to increase sales for the restaurants. Without this fun approach to restaurant packaging strategy, no one sees or is encouraged to share the fun elements of your packaging. We won a GDUSA award for best packaging in consumer products in 2019-2020 for this work.

Picking the Brain of Creative Mastermind Andre Rucker

HipCityVeg packaging was chosen over big brands like Hidden Valley Ranch, Cheerios, Kellogs etc. We chose their work as the cover of the awards publication because it made us smile - GDUSA

Born from the underground izakaya at Double Knot comes DK Sushi: A fine casual experience from Schulson Collective. DK Sushi offers a chef-driven menu of fresh, hand-rolled sushi to dine in or carry away. With individual rolls and specialty boxes, this is a high quality sushi experience offered in a casual, contemporary setting. We refined the dining experience into a smaller footprint fast casual food hall, situated on the University of Penn campus. Packaging was a key component so that students feel like they are eating the high-end restaurant experience at home.

Simply Good Jars, which launched a brand new grab-and-go offering at Di Bruno Bros. and retailers across the region, has welcomed us into their family – and vice versa. We are now committed to providing strategic branding support and web design and development to help push their brand to the next stage. Along the way, we’ll have skin in the game and live with the product every day in our Philadelphia office. This kind of close relationship could not have come from a simple service-provider model. While we can and will execute on tangible deliverables in the near-term, it’s the long-term that inspires us to create value and push each other to be better brands.

We've been featured on DesignRush as on of Philadelphia's top packaging design agencies, for more on packaging trends click 

Cohere tackles the design, sourcing, coordination, and production of brand packaging for any type of restaurant. From menu design to takeaway containers, our agency can create it. 

Contact

Packaging is the customer’s first impression of a product. It’s our job to make sure the packaging looks as great as the food inside it tastes.

Award Winning Restaurant Packaging

Cohere strategized and branded an initiative with the 

, the Lexicon of Sustainability, Tender Greens and Google aimed at promoting global crop diversity.

Most of our food comes from 4 main crops: wheat, rice, maize and soybeans.

As a society, we've built a supply and demand system that has caused mono-cropping and malnutrition. The only way to reverse this negative impact is to help consumers make better choices with a decision they make 3x per day – 

If 60% of our caloric intake is produced by just four crops, then common sense says we’re missing out on an abundance of nutritional and sustainable value. The process of creating the next global food trend offers diversity in our food system and helps combat these environmentally degrading statistics.

Move aside avocado, there’s new chayote in town.

Challenge: Most of our world's food supply comes from four main crops: wheat, rice, maize and soybeans.

There are 30,000 edible plant species in the world, and we’re only eating about 150 of them.

Remember a time when you couldn’t pronounce Quinoa? Or Açai?

Who knew that trends like avocado toast and kale salad could actually be a driver for ending world hunger and climate change? These foods, that often surface from other parts of the world, are the source of introducing diverse ingredients into the menus of our favorite restaurants. The process of diversifying our food system is actually equal parts the role of chefs, storytellers, influencers, legislators, institutions and you – the consumer. Each influence the supply and demand, farm policy and education, consumer messaging and global scale that helps us diversify the 4 crops our world has become dependent on.

The Food Forever Initiative is introducing a series of global activations to help communicate the who, what and why around food diversity.
The first of which happened on Sep. 25th at Google’s New York City office on the “

." During UN Climate Week, officials gather to discuss how to tangibly move the needle on Sustainable Development Goals, with this year’s focus being food diversity.

At Google’s offices, Chef and Tender Greens Co-founder, and Cohere Partner Erik Oberholtzer, and the Rediscovered Foods Initiative challenged 10 renowned chefs to create delicious, diverse dishes of the future. These chefs conceived and 

prepared exciting new dishes using ingredients that could soon break into the mainstream

 of the US food system, such as ulluco, amaranth and monk’s beard.

Cohere’s job was to drive a clear message home:

Consumers have power: the ability decide three times a day what food ingredients to consume, where to source them from, and which establishments to support.

Chefs determine food trends. Acai, arugula, quinoa – were all ingredients that were lesser known ten years ago. Exposure to rediscovered foods can put chef’s brands ahead of trend, while positively influencing the health of the planet and their customers.

What is all of this effort for if we’re not telling the story and giving the audience a clear call-to-action?

At the Food Forever NYC Event, the audience discovered what it means to break out of the safe-zone of ‘known foods’ and experience the future of ingredients. Chefs Erik Oberholtzer, Floyd Cardoz, Dan Kluger, Ray Garcia, Pierre Thiam, Suzanne Cupps, Michael Wurster, Matthew Delisle, Selassie Atadika and Umber Ahmad filled Google’s Highline Cafe to test out dishes that best utilized exotic ingredients like:

The event showcased what we might be eating in 2050 if we embrace some of the weird and wonderful foods yet to break into the US culinary mainstream. Now, the Food Forever Experience series has gone global with over 6 cities in 2019-20. We partnered up with their request to find chefs, food influencers and restaurants who would want to test ingredients for their menus and help with the 2020 goal to diversify our food system.

How the Next Food Trend Could Help Solve World Hunger 

Many founders are grappling with a common issue: small businesses are losing money. 

 in NYC within the first two weeks of this year alone. It's not a sustainable way to run a business, especially in the challenging restaurant landscape. To address this, we're committed to sharing honest stories and, more importantly, solutions. We'll discuss a model that has proven successful for Cohere and our clients – a 

https://ny.eater.com/restaurant-closings

Our Financial Wellness model was created out of necessity. We needed to adopt financial health and wellness as a cultural shift. This program showed us how.

After some financial strife of our own, Cohere started to adopt our own Partner's advice - 

 who has used this "equitable sharing" in his

previous experience as Founder of Tender Greens.


YOU MUST START WITH BEING HONEST AND GET OUT OF YOUR EGO MINDSET


Transparency is scary, especially when it comes to finances because most leaders blame themselves. Just as 

, it is important to accept that there are economic and consumer downturn trends that you can't control. Hiding the truth about your numbers from investors, your team, the public...is detrimental for your health. A lack of transparency also causes a poor cycle that keeps the place from improving the numbers. When we share the truth, we are empowered with accurate information that we can use to achieve shared goals. 

Start with small steps to share the burden of your situation with those who can help you by starting with:


https://www.coherestudio.co/stories/a-downturn-to-solutions-food-industry-2024

First ask advisors who have done this before for support at your P&L level, identify 5 key areas for improvement

Set a meeting to share this with your key management and leadership team, commit to true honesty

Create a document as a "critical path" on key priorities to help improve those KPIs. This serves as a guide for how all levels of the organization can participate in an easy to digest format

Dedicate the team to the next steps and set the next check-in date for accountability

Shared financial literacy, all learning how to read a budget and how their role impacts it

Financial reporting, monthly and quarterly, no exceptions


After we shared our high level cost issues, where we needed help, and roles - 

we identified key places that the entire team could share in the reward

. We opened ourselves up to critique and questioning - but also to honest feedback and guidance. With their help, we built these shared rewards which are now in full effect and encourage growth:

We now incentivize our company and employees by setting quarterly “baseline” and “stretch” goals - handing out bonuses if and when we hit them. 

401Ks, Health Benefits, and Long-Term Wealth-Building - 

We better packaged our 401K and health benefits for employees as a part of this process and are also working to add an “equitable share program” wherein Cohere trades services for ownership in new ventures, spreading out that ownership among team members. As we help brand and market exciting new projects, our team will be set up to benefit from their long-term success.

We have been apart of openings, closings, and most useful lately - rebuilding. Our intention is to influence change in the food industry, and that can only be done if we help one another. 

 if we can support your financial wellness and growth.

Living what we teach our clients - build a profitable business, create a transparent process, and share in the reward with your team.

How We Finally Made a Profit: And Why We're Sharing it with Our Community

Having Erik join our team is both a privilege and a no-brainer. Food is an essential part of bringing people together, and it’s been a space that Cohere has built expertise during our history. As an agency, we are evolving into not just branding client projects, but now advising them in their growth opportunities. Erik’s partnership helps us speak the same language as the food world, bringing a unique value of uniting stakeholders from the local to the global level.

However, this evolution may come as a shock to some, so we wanted to address it head-on with an exclusive Q&A with the man himself.

Erik Oberholtzer was born and raised in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, with roots in Philadelphia where he went to Temple University and worked at the Four Seasons. But he truly made a name for himself in the fresh food capital of the world, sunny California. As co-founder of 

, Erik brought faster, healthier food options to the culinary landscape before “fast casual” was even a term.

Tender Greens represents Erik’s voice; chef-led, craveable menu items served with a genuine smile and authentic brand experience. He and his team grew to 29 locations, earning one of the best partners in the business when they did a deal with Danny Meyer in 2015. Most recently he stepped aside from the CEO role to focus on food system innovations at scale.

Welcome to Cohere. We’re imagining that some people might be shocked that you chose a creative agency for the next part of your journey. Tell us how that decision came about.

Building Tender Greens from an idea to a national brand absorbed the past fifteen years of my life. With the company now in the capable hands of a new leadership team, 

I have time to guide the next generation of entrepreneurs through the headwinds of growth

. My focus is to help conscious entrepreneurs achieve their holistic goals at scale. Cohere’s strength in aligning stakeholders around a common vision and relating that vision to key audiences is a perfect complement to my skills and experience. My life’s dedication to using food as an agent of positive change in the world lives organically with Cohere’s world view. Together, I believe we can make an incredible impact on the lives of founders, their teams and everyone they touch.

“The timing is perfect for both parties to merge and help solve some of our client’s problems at a higher level.”

One of the things that is different about you is your passion for supply chain integrity and food justice. How will working with other brands help you deepen your commitment to your interests in sustainability?

We built Tender Greens on the premise that good food, whole food, real food should be available to everyone, not just the one percent. Fifteen years later we have helped influence a category that changed the way people eat.

By working with young brands led by conscious founders

, I believe we can help transform people’s relationship with food towards healthier lifestyles and a better planet. If I can help brands align their values with their everyday practices, then we all win. At scale, initiatives like Rodale Institute’s regenerative organic farming or the Food Forever initiative in preserving plant diversity become possible missions rather than moonshot goals. By thinking globally and acting locally, we become guides to a better way for the restauranteur and their consumer.

Some of the endeavors you are involved with seem like moonshot ideas. How do you hope these initiatives help inform the brands you’re working with?

When John F. Kennedy announced America’s intention to put a man on the moon it was a call to action. When the United Nations designed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals they challenged the thought leaders of the world to align around 1 goal in a pledge of action. It is in this pledge of action that I will look to influence the company I founded in 2006, Tender Greens, along with the brands we advise to build their business into responsible action agents of global change.

Each brand added to the list of change agents draws us closer to the moonshots necessary to change the world.

No matter how big or small, every business has a role to play in the future of our planet and the 9 billion people on it. I am here to do my part by working with the most enlightened young entrepreneurs in food to guide us towards better.

You're known for crafting your "Ten Year Plan," even naming your original business TYP, and crusing the goals you and your co-founders outlined for yourselves. What are some ways our community can learn from that?

 is another way of “taking the long view”. For Tender Greens, we were clear from the beginning that we planned to build a 30 unit California brand over the course of a decade. A brand founded and lead by chefs. Chefs with an intense commitment to local ingredients aligned with our sensibilities. Chefs who honored the lessons of refined technique to create crave-able food for daily enjoyment. As I contemplated my next TYP I wrote it in the form of a New York Times article. In ten years what would I want a New York Times profile on me and my work to sound like? When a person or brand has clarity on this “true north,” then 

it all comes down to tactics and execution. That is the hard part.

When I begin work with founders I ask two questions. The first is – “What would you like the New York Times headline on you and your brand to say?”

By writing this article on your future successful self/brand you set the intentions of your WHY? or true north and HOW? or the Google Maps to get there.

I then ask for a journal entry. This is the founder’s mind dump. What keeps you up at night? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What plays over and over again in that monkey brain of ambition, fear, anxiety, passion, and impulse during your commute? All of that shared in a cathartic journal entry to gauge where you are at today. Then we link the two with strategy, tactics and what I call founder’s therapy. The rest is execution.



Coming back to “Why Cohere?” Antoinette and her team are filled with youthful energy, digital nativism and a clear connection to the culture now emerging with intense influence. I represent the tail end of the previous class of influence. My wisdom, experience, and analog romanticism married to Cohere’s talent in the story, connection, and stakeholder cohesion fills me with optimism for a better future. 

Together we can help brands and institutions achieve their full potential and build healthier communities along the way.

We are honored to announce Erik Oberholtzer’s partnership with Cohere as an advisor for founders in the food space.

Q&A with Erik Oberholtzer: His Transition from Tender Greens to a Creative Agency

As a prominent voice in the food space, Erik is regularly invited to leading industry events to learn about what’s ahead of the curve. That information has been useful for Cohere’s effort guiding budding restauranteurs who are navigating the changing landscape of food and hospitality. Recently, he had the privilege of attending an event at Google Food Lab to brainstorm how chefs, restauranteurs, and marketers can spark positive change in our systems.


Chef and Cohere Advisor Erik Oberholtzer shares his key takeaways from the Google Food Lab Summit

As my journey progresses into different spaces that bring me out of the kitchen, I’ve had the honor of playing a role in big conversations where brands and global organizations strive to solve complicated problems pertaining to food. Last week, I visited the Google Food Lab Summit held at the Spruce Goose Hanger on Google’s Los Angeles campus.

Google X is designed to find moonshot solutions to the biggest challenges of our time. Google Food Labs refers to these as “foodshots”.

Our group was challenged to take action on five key areas of food:

1. Our first goal is to move food culture towards a more plant-forward diet.

By reducing animal consumption and replacing it with plant-based foods we can take the pressure off the planet. Though I advocate for an emphasis on whole foods versus overly processed plant-based meat analogs, I do recognize that companies like Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat serve as an important gateway into adopting a more plant-centered diet. Through my advisory work with Cohere, we are able to guide menus on a seasonal basis toward plant-forward, locally sourced and tasty ingredients – making a tangible change that directly impacts consumers.

2. Transparency in our food system is a key challenge the group aims to tackle.

Our current food culture is opaque. The language of food diluted by well-budgeted marketing campaigns that confuse the consumer. One attendee joked of the 50 shades of milk on the shelves. With so many options consumers often struggle to align their purchases with values sending mixed messages back through the supply chain.

3. One of the biggest threats to our environment we can all agree on is plastic waste.

The demonizing of the plastic straw is a good first step in eliminating plastic from our food system. One speaker asked us to imagine a single day where all 7 billion people on the planet agreed to not drink single-use bottled water. That is 7 billion plastic bottles in one day. Imagine what 7 billion bottles per day look like! Then think about doing your part next time you grab a bottle of water.


4. Moving to a plant-forward diet is not enough, we also need to broaden our agriculture and diets to reflect a more biodiverse food system.

Currently, we get 60% of our calories from just 4 ingredients. Industrialized corn, soy, wheat, and rice are heavily sprayed on mono-crop farms then stripped of nutrients for processed foods that make our planet and people sick. We need to regenerate our soil, diversify our agricultural ecosystems and enjoy food as medicine versus the causation of disease.

5. The heaviest lift of all five is to move towards circular systems.

A circular food system is one that gives back what it removes, from the environment and society. This requires a shift in the way we live. We have a long way to go before everyone is working towards the future this group imagines.

By partaking in these large-scale conversations and carrying this message on as we work with brands and chefs, I have hope that together, we can make a real impact on these goals.

Our work with Cohere’s family of brands helps us take these moonshot ideas that are ahead of the curve, and translate them into menu experiences and consumer product goods that help us all make smarter decisions for the health of people and the planet. We are acting as a bridge between Google Food Labs and other leading organizations on an international scale, to trickle down impact in the smallest of ways through the brands we serve.

The more brands in our family join this journey, the closer we come to achieving the foodshots Google and others have challenged us with, and the better chance we have of finding 

a way forward to a more sustainable and equitable future.

Since joining Cohere as an advisor to chefs and entrepreneurs, Erik Oberholtzer has been bringing some of his learnings from thought leadership events back to Cohere.

Stories About Food

Stories about
Food

From Downturn to Solutions: How the Food Industry Can Thrive in 2024

Creating a Space for BIPOC Food Brands in Kensington

Award Winning Restaurant Packaging

How the Next Food Trend Could Help Solve World Hunger

How We Finally Made a Profit: And Why We're Sharing it with Our Community

Q&A with Erik Oberholtzer: His Transition from Tender Greens to a Creative Agency

5 Takeaways From Google Food Lab

Stories About Food

Stories about FoodEverything

From Downturn to Solutions: How the Food Industry Can Thrive in 2024

Creating a Space for BIPOC Food Brands in Kensington

Award Winning Restaurant Packaging

How the Next Food Trend Could Help Solve World Hunger

How We Finally Made a Profit: And Why We're Sharing it with Our Community

Q&A with Erik Oberholtzer: His Transition from Tender Greens to a Creative Agency

5 Takeaways From Google Food Lab

Stories about
Food