Online gourmet food service coming to R.I.
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Two former chefs are hoping the convenience of online shopping combined with home delivery and gourmet products will be the recipe for success for their new grocery venture, ThymeSavers.com.
The new online service (at www.thymesavers.com) opened for business on November 30 to cater to from-home grocery shoppers in the Providence, Cranston, Warwick, Johnston and East Greenwich areas – all within a 10-mile radius of the company’s Cranston warehouse.
With a culinary background – owner Marvin Carter and vice president Michael Weber met when they were both chefs at Café Nuovo in Providence – ThymeSavers offers access to gourmet and organic items as well as the more basic fare. Carter hopes that the company’s ability to provide these specialty items will enable ThymeSavers to carve out its own niche for the area’s busy gourmet shoppers.
Carter thinks the key is to start small. Similar businesses have not succeeded, he said, because they were simply too large starting out. “We thought, ‘It’s a good concept, but not everybody’s ready for it,'” he said. “We’re not trying to service everybody – we’re looking for a certain group of people.”
Carter said he sees busy families, the elderly, offices, fire stations, police stations and day cares as potential clients.
And for the customers who are ready to grocery shop online, it was important to make sure the technology was easy to handle.
“The task of going shopping, if you’re like me, you don’t like doing it,” Carter said. “So, we made the Web site quick and simple to navigate.”
After registering on the ThymeSavers home page, shoppers can enter the online store and select from more than 5,500 items they would like to buy from a list by clicking a mouse. The Web page subtotals purchases in process, and customers are able to review and revise the items on their list at any point during a transaction.
Once a shopping list is complete, it is filed and filled within 24 hours for basic items and in 48 hours for specialized products. Regular membership is $10 per month and delivery is $7.50 per order. Customers can have “standing” orders that are regularly delivered.
The site also features sales each day, just as a traditional grocery store does.
Carter got the idea for the business while still on staff at Café Nuovo, when he was taking a food service entrepreneurship at Johnson & Wales University.
“I said ‘I’m going to shop for people,'” he said. “I was going to do it from my home.”
Refining his business plan included adding the online and gourmet elements. In fact, Carter said, he is using some of the same vendors he ordered from at Café Nuovo.
Weber said the shift from the kitchen to the warehouse is definitely a change.
“With cooking, the rewards are nightly. This requires a little more patienceI’m passionate about food. I’m just redirecting my passion. This is fun to do right now,” he said. The company’s warehouse facility is 7,000 square feet. They stock only the basics and order meat and seafood only when they are requested by a customer. The plan for expansion includes staying small.
“We want to decentralize it and keep it small,” he said. “We want to maintain the integrity of the food, keep it fresh.”
ThymeSavers’ first customers, Carter said, will play an important role, because their selections are what will determine the types of things the company will carry in the future. “This is more geared to them, whoever is a member,” he said. “We’re going to order what they want.”
The company’s goal is to log 25,000 sales by the end of 2002. Eventually, Carter said ThymeSavers hopes to offer fully prepared gourmet meals and even a signature line of sauces and other specialty products.
“I think the economy will bounce back,” Weber said. “People are just as busy as ever and as long as they continue to be, there will be a niche for us.”
