If you drive on any highways in the Tri-State area, chances are you’ve seen a Chefs’ Warehouse truck (or two, or seven). They’re highway regulars, carting top-tier meat, seafood, dairy, and produce to restaurants all over the country, including our hungry neck of the woods. Except now, they might be driving to a house near you.
Chefs’ Warehouse, started by the Pappas brothers in the Bronx over 30 years ago, will always count high-end, chef-driven restaurants as their primary trade. But as soon as COVID-19 restrictions hit, they stepped up with their #shoplikeachef home delivery option. And it’s not a wishful hashtag. You’re buying product that would otherwise go to a restaurant. The only caveat: a $35 delivery fee (unless you order more than $250), slightly bigger portions (this is ordering for a month, not a weekend), and slightly limited delivery: currently you can get Chefs’ Warehouse deliveries in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Mercer, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset and Union counties.
For some more insight into how it works, we caught up with Chefs’ Warehouse director of category development John Magazino, who’s been overseeing the transition since its inception.
Table Hopping: Is selling to consumers a first for Chefs’ Warehouse?
John Magazino: We’ve actually been selling to consumers for many years. We’ve had a website where consumer are able to order from us. It’s been a smaller part of our business. Typically they’re buying high-end specialty products. Great steaks and meats. Truffles and caviar. But our focus was always working with the best restaurants, hotels, and country clubs in the country. The first week of March, we started to see closures of some of the restaurants. And we immediately made a pivot.
TH: What did that pivot involve?
JM: We had a lot of things to consider. The safety of our team—that we would be able to faithfully deliver food and make sure we were doing everything compliant with food safety. We started the pivot right around the first week of March. COVID was impacting the Northeast. It was not easy. We were a $2 billion company. To make a sudden turn, over 1,000 trucks used to delivering to restaurants in big cities, primarily, now going to do home deliveries up driveways? It was quite a challenge. But we did it rapidly.
TH: Was there a big change in terms of logistics?
JM: It involved setting up individual websites in each region we operate. We used to have just one central website that serviced the entire U.S. And any consumer shopping was handled through UPS or FedEx. But we did it. Other home grocery delivery services have a hard time scheduling people within two or three weeks. With services like Fresh Direct and PeaPod, the delays are two to three weeks. Some aren’t even taking orders. We’re delivering to the New Jersey and metropolitan New York area within one to three days, about 2,000 orders a day.
TH: And what about the product itself?
JM: Almost everything you order off our site is a product that would be served at the finest restaurants in the country. The quality of the seafood, the quality of the meat—there’s no higher quality. These are the exact products you would get at the best restaurants in New Jersey and New York.
TH: What about the supply chain? With recent news like the Smithfield COVID shutdown, there’s more concern now than ever that major suppliers might be impacted.
JM: I read the story about Smithfield and that’s unfortunate… We have not experienced any interruptions in any of our supply chain. And we don’t foresee any issues. The producers Chefs’ Warehouse works with are very high-end, smaller producers, and I think a little more conscientious and focused on health practices and standards. Smithfield, I mean I read they had 250 people working elbow-to-elbow on a line. We knew right away to have separation, even in our workplace.
TH: Because you’re delivery is regionalized, does that mean New Jersey buyers are going to be getting more local product?
JM: Our chickens are amazing. They come from Pennsylvania. They’re all hormone-free, antibiotic-free, from within a 150-mile radius of our warehouse. Things like our calamari come from Rhode Island. We have butter from Vermont. So we try to keep things to the best extent we can in the Northeast. We absolutely carry New Jersey produce. The season hasn’t kicked off yet. But tomatoes and blueberries and asparagus from New Jersey will be on the website.
TH: Considering the high-caliber vibe, I would assume you have to order a minimum?
JM: There’s actually no minimum. It’s $35 shipping for orders under $250. For that you get contact-free delivery. I had a delivery to my home today in Connecticut. They’ll come up and unload everything in certain areas, if it’s visible, a good place to put it, like the porch or near the front door. Or they’ll ring your doorbell and step back 25 feet, wait for you to come to the door and ask you where you’d like them to put it. You already paid for it and there’s nothing to sign.
TH: What about bulk? Ordering quantity?
JM: Our primary customers are restaurants, hotels, country clubs. So things are packed in larger sizes than what most families would normally see at a grocery store. That said, things like produce are hard-packed to be family-friendly. We put together a number of protein and seafood boxes that are also family-friendly. Some of the burgers are [packs] of 20 or 40. It’s enough for the family! Another thing we’re seeing people doing, single individuals are teaming up with friends or neighbors. “Hey, I’ve got an order coming, the truck will be able to get here tomorrow. Do you want to split it?”
We’re also seeing a big movement now of people doing a lot more cooking at home, things they’ve never tried before. People are baking breads like never before. So at first, no one was going to buy 50 pounds of flour. People are saying “I’m baking loaves of bread at a time, making pizza and giving bread out to local families and charities.” So people are going through restaurant-quantity sizes fairly rapidly, which is amazing to us. People are trying to be more resourceful. But we’re just happy at this point to be doing a public service to get people food, keep them out of stores. Nobody wants to be walking around a supermarket right now.
TH: What about those luxury items?
JM: We’re really trying to put out the items we know people need in their homes. But we still do have caviar available. Some people are calling and asking for that, having a little bit of the “end of the world” thing. But most importantly, we want to make sure people are getting the things they need to feed their families.
TH: You’ve also begun a charitable initiative?
JM: So many people impacted by loss of job or income. So for every order placed online across the country, we’re giving 10 percent to frontline workers. We haven’t picked a charity yet but we are putting the funds aside from every transaction.
You can order from Chefs’ Warehouse here. Make sure to provide up to three days for your order to arrive.