“One great thing about food is that it connects us all,” explains Joe Ariel, CEO & Founder of the popular online food marketplace Goldbelly. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this is more important now than ever, and Goldbelly is recognizing this as an opportunity to connect and comfort individuals across the country during these challenging times.
In an effort to support communities in the US, Goldbelly recently launched City Restaurant Subscription Boxes, which will provide customers with iconic specialties from their chosen cities. The profits from each subscription will then be donated to feeding health care workers and first responders in each designated city. Goldbelly has also worked to donate 1,000 packages of food to front line workers. From doctors to shipping couriers, the Goldbelly team is giving back to the essential workers who are taking care of us all.
“Crises make us realize just how much we really need each other. They also bring out the best in people. We are not alone in recognizing the tremendous efforts made by healthcare workers and first responders to bring the nation out of this crisis,” Ariel shares, “We wanted to give back to those who have given so much to us, so we launched City Subscription Boxes.”
Though the COVID-19 pandemic has given Goldbelly the direct ability to do so, the goal of the company since its inception has been to use food to bring comfort to people across the country. “Food has a strong connection to memory – the taste or smell of a certain dish can take us back to memories of grandma making the family’s favorite Sunday sauce or a vacation in New Orleans,” reveals Ariel, who founded the company after moving to New York City and longing for the Southern delicacies of his college town, Nashville. Food holds the unique power to make anyone feel heartened and at home, regardless of the situation, and this empowers Goldbelly to help people feel better through food.