[Video] Flashfood CEO talks rebrand and improving nutrition access

Recently, the company has made some additional shifts in its executive leadership, including Bertram’s transition from president and chief operating officer to CEO; as well as Flashfood’s founder, Josh Domingues’ move to executive chairman and Jordan Schenck’s appointment from chief brand officer to chief customer officer.

Bertram, an industry vet with decades of developing sustainability initiatives for retailers, like Jewel-Osco, Walmart and GIANT, has led the development of Flashfood’s technological infrastructure, like AI and machine learning, to expand more value and convenience for shoppers and retail partners with the mission of combatting food insecurity and reducing retailer food waste.

As CEO, Bertram intends to focus on data to drive the brand’s growth while collaborating with his team across departments to implement new initiatives that allow for more substantial retailer partnerships across the country. Currently, Flashfood is available in approximately 2,000 stores with 14 retail partners.

Last February, the company also announced SNAP EBT's​ availability for shoppers, the first discount grocery to app to provide this option, expanding access to consumers through its partnership with Forage​, a USDA-approved EBT processor.

Bertram added that growth for the company looks like “more access for more shoppers to join, which means we need to have more retailers and that’s what 2023 was all about.”

Rebrand highlights "what are we for, rather than what are we against"

For this year, Bertram explains that Flashfood will strengthen its infrastructure, like cloud data storage and data architecture, as well as “figuring out who [the consumer] needed us to be, who [the retailers] needed us to be,” which initiated the company’s rebranding.

In collaboration with New York-based design and branding agency, PORTO ROCHA, Flashfood updated its iconography, logo, type and bright blueberry color to “explore the expression of the joy that happens when its shoppers save money on groceries,” the company stated in a press release.

Bertram noted that the rebrand was also an opportunity to center its message on “what are we for, rather than what are we against.”

While the company was founded to reduce food waste, Bertram explained that over time, the brand learned more about how its consumers not only have better access to healthy food, but trying new foods that were previously cost-prohibitive, insights that were folded into its branding strategy.

“What we learned is that in the process of solving [an end to food waste], and obviously [it’s] not solved, we’re still working against that. But what really happened was that families had more access to food that they had not tried before … or was out of reach because sometimes those products can be quite expensive,” he emphasized.