scratchDC, a dinner-kit delivery startup serving the greater D.C. area, is planning on opening an 8,000-square-foot warehouse off New York Avenue in Northeast in March. The company's growth since beginning operations two and a half years ago is the main reason for the move to the warehouse space.
"We're currently in a commercial kitchen in National Harbor," says Joe Kennedy, a partner with scratchDC. "It's a catering kitchen. When we were preparing 20 meals a day, it was fine. Now, we're preparing [up to] 150 meals a day and we're bursting at the seams."
Kennedy says the new warehouse, which will have a new kitchen with two walk-in refrigerators, will be divided into two spaces: "Half is for us; we are looking for a couple of businesses to share the other half." He maintains that the warehouse is not an incubator. "We're looking for a business that would complement ours."
scratchDC delivers "dinner kits"—locally sourced and prepared ingredients, along with recipes, so that busy urbanites can cook and eat at home without having to shop for meals and slave away at the chopping board. The kits, which feed two, are assembled at scratchDC and delivered to customers in the District, Arlington, Alexandria, Silver Spring and Bethesda. Kennedy says that unlike competitors, scratchDC requires no subscription or minimum order.
"The first day, we sold two meals," Kennedy says. "Now we sell between 120 and 150 per day." Balancing supply and demand can be tricky in a fresh-food delivery business. "Our ingredients are fresh and orders come in faster than we can purchase. For the past two weeks, we've been selling out at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. Yesterday, we sold out at 10 p.m. the night before. We don't want to waste food [by buying too much]."
scratchDC has also grown in terms of employees. The company was founded in August 2012 by Ryan Hansan and one employee; it now employees 17 full time. Once the warehouse opens, that number will grow, though Kennedy isn't sure of the exact number of people the company will need. "We just hired a manager to oversee scratchDC, the warehouse and some other projects," he says.