When Patrick Garrivier first started Patrick’s Gourmet Catering, delivering three-course meals to folks at home during the pandemic, the three-course meals were $30, including tax. As supply chain issues tightened, that $30 started becoming a better and better deal for the consumer — and less and less feasible for a small business to survive.

“Our margin was already very, very slim when we started at $30, but we wanted to make it affordable for everyone,” Garrivier says.

Since debuting at $30 per meal, the cost of proteins, Garrivier says, increased more than 30 percent, in some cases as much as 50 percent. The price of a package of 250 plastic clam shell containers went up $20, and gas prices continue to increase. To help offset those costs, Garrivier made the decision to raise prices by $3.

“People understood,” he says. “They understand; they see it. I mean, everybody sees the increase. The inflation is here, it’s real, so there was not really a major problem on that.”

Sam Diminich, owner of Your Farms, Your Table also faced the difficult decision to increase prices. His three-course meals were also $30 per person, and remained so until recently, when he increased the price to $40.

“I just wanted to keep it as low as possible for as long as possible, so that anybody in the community could literally afford a handcrafted, custom curated meal as opposed to fast casual or fast food options,” Diminich says.

When he launched Your Farms, Your Table, he did so out of his apartment, attempting to keep fixed costs as low as possible and provide more money for his farm partners. As the business grew, however, he — like Garrivier — moved into a commissary kitchen space and hired more staff, which increased the business’s overhead. One way he helped cover increasing prices was to add additional revenue streams to the business, like private catering and taking on personal chef clients, including Panthers’ star Christian McCaffrey.

“In order to support the people that we care about the most — which is really our team members — and make sure that they have hours and we have a safe space for them to come in and work, we had to make some adjustments,” Diminich says.

Working with local suppliers, Diminich says he doesn’t have to worry about getting hit with a surprise price increase on invoices, and cutting out the middle man helps keep costs more reliable. It’s the delivery piece of Your Farms, Your Table that causes some supply chain difficulties.

“The biggest challenge that we have is with the tools that we use for to-go service: the plastics, the bags, those supplies,” he says. “Those are the ones that really keep me up at night sometimes, whenever supply is super narrow and our options are limited.”

Prices continue to rise. While Garrivier believes the increase will be enough, he fears having to increase the cost of his meals to $40 or more won’t work for the business model. He hopes things settle soon, and the small price increase they’ve implemented will be all they need to do.

“I don’t think $3 is a lot, but it is for us,” he says. “It’s sustainable now to keep doing food meal deliveries every day. That was a major thing for us; I didn’t want to increase it. And on top of that, we are charging taxes now because I have to charge taxes. $30, minus tax, minus packaging, minus everything — I ended up with almost nothing after I paid everybody.”

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