Midterms in quarantine. After hours on your computer, the last thing you want to do is prepare a meal. Many Cal Poly students turn to apps like UberEats and Postmates for convenience, but there are only so many options for delivery service. This got us thinking, what if there was a healthier alternative that offers the same push of a button convenience? Through this, we found Harvestly.
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Intrigued by their business model, we reached out to the Harvestly team to learn more about their service. As students ourselves, we knew that our peers would be interested to learn about a quick and easy food service with healthy alternatives, that also supports local businesses.
The Harvestly team was eager to participate, and connected us with Stephanie Nye, one of their vendors.
“Harvestly has provided a way, a means for me to get my soup to a much farther reach and would be something I would be incapable of doing on my own so it’s really been a benefit to my business.” Nye said.
As Harvestly is a student run business, one of our biggest challenges was coordinating a time that worked with all of our class and work schedules. But once we were able to secure a time, they allowed us entrance to their fulfillment center, which was extremely beneficial to our video content.
“The fact that we were able to safely do all of our interviews in person was really great.” Said Ruby Tincup, who worked on the video portion of our story. “I had been doing Zoom interviews for so long this project was really refreshing. The Harvestly team was so great to work with and provided so many great insights into their company that it was hard for me to narrow down the best quotes to put in the video”
The video focused on the individuals who operate and benefit from their services, while the written portion, by Sierra Hickman, offered a deeper insight into how the Harvestly team is expanding their vision to empower small businesses.
“I wanted to show how their business model is aiding local vendors beyond the scope of the pandemic.” Hickman said. “I was able to highlight the problem of local vendors struggling to increase their outreach. Lafky’s newest project Bloom is expanding off of Harvestly’s business model, helping small vendors country wide increase their consumer outreach”
Overall, we felt that this was a timely story to report on as food service is more necessary than ever, and many local businesses are struggling during this time. Harvestly offered the solution for easy delivery, while simultaneously supporting local small businesses. We wanted to provide an inside look into a student run company that aids the local community, and we believe that Cal Poly students and the San Luis Obispo community will appreciate this insight.