DENVER — A Colorado meal service wants to connect you with fresh food from local farmers.
Spade & Spoon packages the ingredients and delivers them with recipes to make at home. It's made the "farm to table" concept, quick and easy.
"We make it really easy for people to eat delicious, local food," said Spade & Spoon founder Joy Rubey. "We deliver it right to a customer's door step."
Part of their job is creating a menu using Colorado-grown ingredients.
"We spend a lot of time focused on certain ingredients," said Rubey. "This day we're focused on all these delicious sauces."
The sauces were from Denver-based Not Bad Cooks.
But, customers pick the meals they want from the Spade & Spoon website, and they package the kits to be delivered.
"We deliver with recipes, ingredients, sauces, spice blends," said Rubey. "We use Sfoglina pasta, Altius greens, Five Freedoms dairy. So, it's like we go through, and we shop the farmers' markets."
They piece together meat and vegetarian options, pastas and salads. They even package kids' meals they can make themselves to encourage healthy eating.
But, it takes some of the marketing and distribution challenges off the food producers' plate.
"I'm looking for really unique sauces, and spices," said Rubey "I'm looking for the best tortillas. I'm looking for the best pizza dough. And then I build relationships with those people, so that I understand what they're up against."
It saves families time deciding what to eat, with right portions and labeling to show off the local businesses.
"We really want you to recognize all the different people in the community you're supporting," said Rubey. "I think that we have a really broken food system, and one way to change that is by building a vibrant local food community."
Giving Colorado farmers a new outlet, and consumers a new taste, of options right under their nose.
"We believe the product and our mission sells itself," said Rubey. "So once you try it, we believe you'll come back and order more."
