FoundersGive Brings Together 200+ Brands to Support Frontline Workers
As healthcare workers become today’s heroes, food and beverage brands across the country are banding together to give back and donate to New York City metro hospitals under a new initiative, FoundersGive.
Founded by entrepreneur Cole Riley, the group has collected over half a million products from roughly 230 brands. The items are then redistributed, through a partnership with logistics, storage, and shipping provider Mitchell’sNY Logistics to nine local New York City hospitals, with 16 more expected to come online next week.
FoundersGive evolved from Riley’s prior businesses, Founders Market, a media company profiling food and beverage brands (and their founders) and producing for-hire content. The hope was to have Founders Market, which started in January this year, eventually serve as a launching point for an ecommerce platform.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept New York City, however, Riley felt he wasn’t doing enough to help. He also saw that while food and beverage companies wanted to help, they simply couldn’t reach the necessary people.
“In break rooms, lounges and cafeterias across New York City you’ve got doctors, nurses, and health care workers eating old vending machine snacks and drinking old coffee. And in some cases, there’s no cafeterias open. You’ve got these workers on the frontline of this pandemic not really having anything to eat — and that’s unacceptable,” Riley said. “A lot of the brands that I knew wanted to give their product to hospitals but didn’t know how to.”
The issue, he added, is that already overburdened hospital administrators didn’t have the bandwidth to connect with every brand that wanted to donate product — be it one case or 100 cases. FoundersGive removes this hurdle, acting as a distributor, Riley said.
Each brand can give as little or as much as they want, with donated products ultimately serving as a tax write-off since the products end up at non-profit hospitals. For some, this may mean simply a case, while for others, the donation is more significant. Chobani, for example, has committed to donating a truck’s worth of product (roughly 5,100 double cases or 122,400 4 oz. cups).
Meanwhile, Sabra has given approximately 11,300 Sabra Snackers (cups of hummus or guacamole paired with a chip or pretzel). Tomer Harpaz, Sabra’s CEO, said that despite navigating a unique time for the business, the need to support frontline workers was immediately apparent.
“We stand in awe as we witness remarkable bravery and commitment,” Harpaz said. “We are committed to supporting not only front line workers but struggling families who live in the communities in which we operate. This is time for people to come together for the greater good, and together we shall win.”
Riley said he welcomes the opportunity to speak with founders around the country who want to set up their own local relief programs, though he will remain focused on New York City ,where he says the need is greatest. However, he’s already working to expand the program to provide food to other nonprofit organizations, such as schools and food pantries. To achieve these goals, Riley hopes to find corporate sponsors that can help finance the expansion. Looking even further afield, Riley said he hopes to find a way to provide support during other disasters, serving as the “FEMA of food.”
“Long term, what I’ve recognized is that beyond just this COVID-19 pandemic, this obstacle between brands and hospitals or any type of emergency situation, there’s a disconnect and brands are going to face the problem of getting products into the hands of people who need it,” Riley shared.
For now, though, the focus is on the fight at hand, with brands committing to ongoing donations to support frontline workers.
“One of the silver linings of the current crisis is that the enemy is that the entire world can unite together to fight. There are no borders, no religions, and no politics that are understood by the virus,” Grant Gyesky, Co-Founder & CEO Rise Brewing, said of his donations to FoundersGive. “We can all come together around the world to support these selfless warriors.”
Brands who want to be involved can contact Riley at cole.riley@foundersmarket.co and arrange for their products to be delivered to Mitchell’sNY via mail, freight or even drop off. The group can accept beverages or food, shelf stable or chilled. Most in demand, Riley said, are beverages and shelf-stable grab-and-go snacks.
