Jesse Leadbetter, the founder of Freshlist. Photo courtesy

As the CEO and co-founder of Freshlist, a technology company and food hub that coordinates the transfer of locally farmed food to restaurants and consumers, Jesse Leadbetter works with a lot of small-business owners. He’s realized that it’s hard for entrepreneurs to assign structure to their days. “There’s just always some new challenge or curveball or setback — or opportunity,” he says, adding that the pandemic has only worsened the unpredictability. “One of the ways that I deal with that uncertainty is trying to make sure I do have structure where I can get structure.”

Leadbetter’s job involves fine-tuning delivery schedules and operational processes; maintaining personal relationships with chefs, farmers, and staff; and charting a long-term course for the area’s first food hub. Here’s what a day in his life looks like.

5 a.m. Leadbetter used to wake up around 6:15 a.m., but that was before the pandemic. Now, he’s typically up between 4:30 and 5:15 a.m., which makes it hard to find good food and coffee. “Undercurrent has some of the best breakfast in Charlotte, but they don’t open until 7. It’s weird to be up early and there’s no great spot to go get coffee yet.” Instead, he brews his own and takes a few minutes to stretch. He once heard Barack Obama describe on a podcast how he would wear the same few suits to cut down on morning decision-making. Leadbetter takes a similar approach: “My team probably gives me flack for always wearing a Freshlist shirt and a Freshlist hat.”

In 2012, Leadbetter and his partner of 14 years, Kirsten, joined with their neighbors to buy a half-acre adjacent to their property in the Belmont neighborhood. The once-vacant lot is now home to a small orchard; more than 30 garden beds; a flock of chickens; and Sampson and Mama, a pair of cats that after nearly 10 years can hardly be called feral. Leadbetter and Kirsten share some time there before work. “Sometimes you walk through the garden and all you see is weeds and stuff you’re behind on,” he says. “So I try to just focus on smelling the flowers — literally.”

6:30 a.m. Leadbetter strolls to Freshlist’s office on Pegram Street, also in Belmont, and takes advantage of the quiet. “That stretch until the rest of the team comes in and they start picking up is my most productive time, so I try to spend that time working on big picture stuff.” Those projects include strategizing partnerships to continue Freshlist’s program of providing hunger-relief boxes to hospitality workers during the pandemic and expanding the company’s technology offerings. Leadbetter intended Freshlist to be primarily a technology company — providing programs for farmers and food hubs nationwide — rather than a food hub itself. But Charlotte had little established infrastructure, and there were no food hubs here to partner with. “We had to get our hands dirty and actually understand the world that we were trying to exist in before building any technology,” he says. “So we’re to that point now, where we’re working on developing some technology that would actually have an impact on farmers and local food systems.”

8 a.m. Freshlist’s team of eight rolls in soon after Leadbetter, and they often start the day with catch-up conversations that blur the boundary between friend and co-worker. “I never really wanted to manage people because I didn’t feel like I was the type of manager that I always saw in corporations or movies or books. They were these people that were hardened and didn’t get close to any of their employees, and they were only about making money and having authority,” Leadbetter says. “And I realized that, I think in general, that culture is changing, and having a connection with your people is very important.”

Especially this year. “We exist at this kind of chaotic and sometimes painful intersection of the world of farmers and the world of chefs,” Leadbetter explains. “And being in the middle of that can sometimes really be hard on the team.” They have to put their personal needs aside to focus on the needs of two industries that have been tested this year more than ever before.

Farmers may roll up to Freshlist in a beat-up truck, which reminds Leadbetter what drives the chefs and farmers he works with. “These people are doing something they’re passionate about. And their system of values is, I would argue, more sound than someone who’s working into some high-paying job where they hate what they do but make tons of money,” he says. “These people are doing this work, and they get up every day and just make stuff happen. I think they’re doing that in hopes that the rest of us, eventually, our values come back to some sense of normalcy.”

10 a.m. Once a week, Leadbetter leads a staff meeting to get a sense of what everyone’s working on and identify obstacles to their success, be it a broken coffeemaker or overdue service on the van. The team has to be organized and efficient because the business model offers little room for error: Farmers and local producers bring their products to the Freshlist office, where staff divide and repackage them for delivery to restaurants and homes (currently only available in close-in neighborhoods in south and east Charlotte). “We always have less people than we need working for us,” Leadbetter says, “so pretty much anybody in the office knows that they may have to jump into operations and help.”

Members of the team give feedback at monthly one-on-one meetings with Leadbetter, who says that for him the sessions are mostly about listening. He uses the concept of roses, thorns, and seeds to make sure his employees have the opportunity to discuss what’s going well (the roses), “what sucks” (the thorns), and what projects and passions have long-term potential (the seeds).

12 p.m. Leadbetter is “pretty good about going home for lunch.” Lucy, the ragdoll cat he and Kirsten adopted during quarantine, greets him every day, eager for her own midday meal. If Leadbetter has time, he may go to one of the restaurants in the neighborhood — Ace No. 3, Sweet Lew’s BBQ, or The Culture Shop — but most days, he just heats up leftovers.

3 p.m. The afternoons are reserved for less strategic, more tedious tasks at the office: accounting, bookkeeping, “trying to stay on top of the financial aspects of everything.” On Thursdays, Freshlist staff deliver to restaurants within the Interstate 485 loop. When they get back, they gather in the open office, “almost like a little living room,” and share updates: “what’s going on with the restaurants, how our chefs are doing, who’s leaving and going to a new place, who’s got some cool stuff on the menu.” Leadbetter used to do deliveries himself, so he knows firsthand how frustrating it can be to, say, deliver Uptown during Speed Street. As much as he’d like to ride along with drivers and catch up with chefs in person, he knows the company’s success depends on the long-range strategy he develops at the office. The Thursday meeting gives him a chance to stay in touch with the kaleidoscopic local food scene.

6 p.m. Leadbetter does his best to leave work at the office. Kirsten goes right into MBA classes after wrapping up her workday, so he takes the lead on dinner. “I put in my my AirPods and listen to a murder mystery podcast — something that’s not local food or related.” (Murdaugh Murders, about the murders connected to South Carolina’s Murdaugh family, is a recent favorite.) Then he takes another walk through Belmont or Plaza Midwood and retreats again to his urban farm, which affords a beautiful sunset view of Uptown. In the height of the pandemic, he would often contemplate the empty skyscrapers and “try to find some sense of peace and clarity.”

10 p.m. Now he’s able to spend more time with friends, and he swaps stories with them about the highs and lows of their jobs. Leadbetter knows what office life is like — he spent years in sports licensing before hopping off the career ladder to launch Freshlist. He doesn’t regret the trade: “At the end of the day, if you can lay your head down at night and sleep with a clear conscience and just feel like you’re doing something meaningful with your time, I think that’s a victory.” These days, he says, he’s usually asleep “before my head hits the pillow.”

More in this series

James Yoder of Not Just Coffee
Christa Csoka of The Artisan’s Palate
The Hot Box NC’s Michael Bowling
300 East’s Ashley Boyd
Aria and Cicchetti’s Pierre Bader
Sea Level N.C., The Waterman, and Ace No. 3’s Paul Manley
Legion’s Gene Briggs