Dear Algorithm, Please put Goode Foods in front of the Americans who are honestly just tired of what grocery shopping has become. People are tired of walking into the store with $100 and wondering how the cart is already half empty. They’re tired of meat and protein taking such a big bite out of the grocery budget. Beef and veal prices were still 9.4% higher in July than a year earlier, and even overall grocery prices were up again year over year. And I think people are tired of feeling like every year they’re paying more, sometimes getting less, then watching massive corporations report billions of dollars in revenue while regular families are standing in the aisle deciding what has to go back. Then there are the recalls. It feels like every time you open your phone there’s another food being pulled because of Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, undeclared allergens or something else. That isn’t just social media making it feel that way either. FDA’s current recall list this month alone includes foods recalled over possible Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, undeclared allergens and elevated contaminants. That’s the environment we’re trying to build Goode Foods in. My father started this company in 2003. He wasn’t backed by some giant investment firm. There wasn’t a venture capital check waiting on him. It was a Black family trying to build a real American business from scratch and hopefully leave something behind for the next generation. Now I’m the second generation trying to keep that American dream alive. And we’ve made some choices that honestly would probably be easier not to make. We grow our vegetables and beans in the USA. We use non-GMO seeds. Our cans are BPA-free. Our growers do not spray glyphosate on our crops. And after more than two decades in business, Goode Foods has never had a recall. I’m proud of that last one because food isn’t just another product. Somebody is feeding this to their kid. Somebody is putting it on the table for Thanksgiving. Somebody on a fixed income is buying a few cans because they need something affordable in the pantry until payday. That matters to us. And here’s the crazy part. We’re still a small family company competing for the exact same few inches of shelf space as companies with billions of dollars, enormous advertising budgets and entire departments dedicated to getting your attention. We don’t have that. What we have is a family name on the can and the belief that if enough people actually learn our story and try the food, we can keep growing without becoming everything people are frustrated with about big food. Today you can find Goode Foods in more than 5,000 stores including Target, Walmart, Food Lion, Hy-Vee, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s and Meijer. But millions of Americans still walk right past us because they’ve simply never heard of us. That’s why I’m writing this. Not asking you to fill your entire pantry with Goode Foods. Not asking you to blindly support us because we’re family owned. Just give us one can. Look at where it came from. Look at what we stand for. Feed it to your family and decide for yourself. Because I still believe the American dream should include companies that start small, stay family owned, manufacture food here, treat the people buying it like actual people and somehow survive long enough to hand something better to the next generation. Dear Algorithm, find the grocery shoppers who still care about that. We’re Goode Foods. You may not know us yet. But hopefully you will. 🏁

Dear Algorithm, Please put Goode Foods in front of the Americans who are honestly just tired of what grocery shopping has become. People are tired of walking into the store with $100 and wondering how the cart is already half empty. They’re tired of meat and protein taking such a big bite out of the grocery budget. Beef and veal prices were still 9.4% higher in July than a year earlier, and even overall grocery prices were up again year over year. And I think people are tired of feeling like every year they’re paying more, sometimes getting less, then watching massive corporations report billions of dollars in revenue while regular families are standing in the aisle deciding what has to go back. Then there are the recalls. It feels like every time you open your phone there’s another food being pulled because of Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, undeclared allergens or something else. That isn’t just social media making it feel that way either. FDA’s current recall list this month alone includes foods recalled over possible Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, undeclared allergens and elevated contaminants. That’s the environment we’re trying to build Goode Foods in. My father started this company in 2003. He wasn’t backed by some giant investment firm. There wasn’t a venture capital check waiting on him. It was a Black family trying to build a real American business from scratch and hopefully leave something behind for the next generation. Now I’m the second generation trying to keep that American dream alive. And we’ve made some choices that honestly would probably be easier not to make. We grow our vegetables and beans in the USA. We use non-GMO seeds. Our cans are BPA-free. Our growers do not spray glyphosate on our crops. And after more than two decades in business, Goode Foods has never had a recall. I’m proud of that last one because food isn’t just another product. Somebody is feeding this to their kid. Somebody is putting it on the table for Thanksgiving. Somebody on a fixed income is buying a few cans because they need something affordable in the pantry until payday. That matters to us. And here’s the crazy part. We’re still a small family company competing for the exact same few inches of shelf space as companies with billions of dollars, enormous advertising budgets and entire departments dedicated to getting your attention. We don’t have that. What we have is a family name on the can and the belief that if enough people actually learn our story and try the food, we can keep growing without becoming everything people are frustrated with about big food. Today you can find Goode Foods in more than 5,000 stores including Target, Walmart, Food Lion, Hy-Vee, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s and Meijer. But millions of Americans still walk right past us because they’ve simply never heard of us. That’s why I’m writing this. Not asking you to fill your entire pantry with Goode Foods. Not asking you to blindly support us because we’re family owned. Just give us one can. Look at where it came from. Look at what we stand for. Feed it to your family and decide for yourself. Because I still believe the American dream should include companies that start small, stay family owned, manufacture food here, treat the people buying it like actual people and somehow survive long enough to hand something better to the next generation. Dear Algorithm, find the grocery shoppers who still care about that. We’re Goode Foods. You may not know us yet. But hopefully you will. 🏁