This week on The Localist, Mary Drennen of Nourish Foods joins Carrie. Nourish is a meal delivery service based in Birmingham, AL that specializes in providing healthy meal and snack options throughout the southeast. Carrie starts off the episode telling us what she loved about using Nourish (sustainable packaging! healthy options! snacks!) and Mary tells us how she first got involved in the meal delivery business. Mary and Carrie talk about the importance of having a business partner that can complement your strengths and weaknesses, and the value in having a sounding board that’s as invested as you are. Mary tells us how she met her business partner, how they got started with a catering side hustle, and how Mary eventually convinced Tiffany to come over to the dark side (entrepreneurship, that is). Nourish had an exclusive contract with Iron Tribe Fitness for a while, which provided the opportunity to work out the kinks before they went out on their own. Mary tells us about the more challenging aspects of owning a food business: shipping, logistics, and, of course, training staff (we’re starting to notice a theme throughout the episodes …). Mary and Carrie then talk about scaling a business, the woes of using new technologies, and the value of designing your products around meeting customers where they are. We wrap up the conversation with how Nourish advertises, a blessing in disguise involving the health department, and what Nourish has in store for expanding their offerings in 2020.