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Next step in the evolution of Clover packaging

By on 29 March, 2013 in Customers, Design, Environmental, History

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This picture is what is left when I finish my sandwich from Clover.

2008:
When we launched the MIT in 2008 with the goal of testing and developing our food our goal for packaging was simple: hold the food and not cost much. We made decisions like one size coffee cup which helped simplify things on the truck, limit the amount of caffeine we were handing to customers, and I suspected would give us some buying power in the future. We used foil on our sandwiches, common for food trucks. We chose fry boats for cost, because they kept the fries from steaming in their heat, and because they had a fair-reference, which we thought fun.

2010:
As we matured our goals for packaging evolved. I became hyper-focused on waste. It was just sickening to me how much waste restaurants produce, and I was seeing it up close for the first time. We streamlined our packaging and started making decisions to influence customers. This included using butcher paper for sandwiches. Only handing out bags if a customer asked for a bag. Only wrapping to go if a customer asked for to go. Not pre-loading drinks with lids (they are available for self-serve, but we don’t put them on every drink automatically). The largest change we made at that time was moving to 100% compostable packaging. This was a project I’d been working on for 2 years and when Harvard Square opened I believe it was the first restaurant in the country to have 100% compostable packaging. No recycling. No trash. Just compost. Since making this change we’ve consulted with a number of other restaurants about approaching a similar goal and we’re really proud of the leadership role we’ve been able to take here.

2013:
I’m now starting to think harder about convenience. We’ve been concerned about the customer experience since day 1, but there’s not questions we’ve made choices that make the packaging experience less good. If you compare us to McDonald’s or even Chipotle the end of your meal is MUCH less waste, without a question. But there’s also no question that it’s a much less EASY experience. We ask more of our customers. Comparing:

Coffee and breakfast sandwich at Clover
- 2″ x 6″ strip of compostable butcher paper
- 12 ounce compostable paper cup

Coffee and Breakfast sandwich at McDonald’s or Dunkin’
- Styrofoam Cup with plastic lid (if you order small at Dunkin you can get a paper cup, trick one of our contractors taught me)
- Stir stick
- Cream and sugar
- Napkins
- Bag
- Sandwich wrap (12″x12″ waxed non-compostable paper)

So how to we bridge this divide? I’m afraid our current packaging approach has some negative effects:
1) People tend not to buy multiple meals for togo
2) Customer confusion, especially for first-time customers or less bought-in customers
3) Messy meals. I think the eating experience feels overly messy to some.

 

Comments { 3 }

Enzo, the sandwich. Now playing at CloverMIT

By on 29 January, 2013 in History, Menu, MIT, Team, Training

Enzo, The sandwich

Most of you who eat our food daily know Vincenzo.

Enzo was one of our first employees. He was a former student of Rolando’s working at the Four Seasons. He would help us with the truck here and there. I remember meeting him at Nuestra (now called Crop Circle Kitchen) at 4am, our regular routine at the time, showing him how to open the truck. The next day I had him open, and he had a list of improvements for me.

Enzo has always been conscientious, a hard worker, committed to what we’re trying to do with Clover, completely in love with food, and perhaps above all that a larger than life personality. You know when Enzo is coming. If you’ve met him you’ll never forget him. I know nobody who is anything like Enzo. I don’t expect I ever will. And we all love him to death.

Back in those early days Vincenzo brought me a salad he was really excited for me to try. Some of his family is from Calabria and this salad was based on a traditional salad their family enjoyed. The salad had potatoes, eggplant, and roasted peppers. It was familiar, but different from anything I’d had. The combination of textures and flavors was really vibrant but comforting at the same time. Like Enzo?

We’re going to get to have a lot of fun with wordplay because Enzo has translated his salad into a sandwich and we’re calling that sandwich the Enzo. It launched yesterday at CloverMIT. This Enzo has an Italian sweet pepper relish with a hint of spice, fried eggplant, provolone cheese, and fried potatoes. It’s totally different than anything we’ve done in the past.

If you try this at MIT let us know what you think. We’re in the development stage.

Whatever you do, don’t call this sandwich “The Vinny,” at least not to his face.

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Total Re-Org

By on 9 January, 2013 in History, Team, Training

We’ve been working hard over the past month or so assessing our organizational structure. The topic of organizational structure may seem a bit abstract to you. It did to me when I first heard about it in business school. And there aren’t too many metrics you can throw at it that stick. But for many companies, especially in people-heavy businesses like food, it’s central to everything we do. This is how we answer the questions: Who do you report to? Who is responsible for what?  What’s next for me?

So we’ve been working hard, spending hours talking about what we love and what we don’t like about our current organization. We’ve been studying what others do, in and out of our industry. And we’ve come up with a plan that we think will carry us into the future.

It’s a bit complicated, so this is going to be a long post. The short version is that our managers are going to make more money in 2013 than they did in 2012, which is really exciting. We now have more career paths for managers within the company. And there’s a huge emphasis now on people development. You can’t succeed in the new structure without developing future leaders.

(more after jump)

Continue Reading →

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Clover comic book (yes that’s Mr. Pita in the corner)

By on 15 August, 2012 in Design, Environmental, History, Purpose, Team, Training, Values

Antoria (HSQ) here. You might have heard we’re doing a lot of training right now. Part of the new training program for team members is a comic book about Clover’s history, values, and purpose. New hires will be issued the comic book on their first day at Clover.

I found out early on that Ayr and I share a love for comics. I was eager to make a comic for Clover. A superhero comic where we save the world by becoming conscious of what we eat. It’s what made me fall in love with Clover in the first place, so I figured it would be a walk in the park. It turned out to be a longer walk than expected. I’ve forgotten how rusty I have become over many years of not using a skill I once lived to express. So I have been working on the story and the layout off and on for the past 6 months.

Here’s a sketch of what I’m thinking for the cover. Soon I’ll get this inked and colored, and we’ll be on our way to a completed comic book.

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Rhubarb T-Shirt

By on 11 May, 2012 in Brand, History, Menu, Team

This is a T-shirt I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Mostly because I love rhubarb so so much. But I’m not very happy with how it turned out. Notice how large the food icon is on most of our shirts. On this one it’s pretty tiny. Which is really too bad. I’ve also heard some criticism about the art on this one. Some folks don’t think it looks like Rhubarb.

I make a new shirt every couple of months. The plan has always been to engage local artists to design different shirts, but I haven’t really pulled that off yet. Not enough time to go around and find the right artists/ etc. In the meantime I have a really simple formula that I can execute myself. A big line image of a fruit or vegetable that is in season, our logo, date, and a T-shirt with a color that is close if not a perfect match to the produce. I had this idea that over time employees would be able to wear the T-shirt they like best, being able to maintain some sort of uniformity while allowing employees a degree of personal expression (especially when the artist shirts kick in). And I thought the sea of colored shirts would be fun in the context of our otherwise color-less trucks/ restaurants.

Lucia (communications) and I have been talking about using the color of the T-shirt as a sort of color theme for the month. Don’t get too excited, but we’re introducing a little bit of color to the trucks/ restaurant. The colored logos and colored lights. And we’re going to have them shift seasonally. I’m sure there are some marketing folks out there cringing with the idea of changing colors. But we’ve always been a company with a lot of change and evolution and I think this might be fun for everybody.

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MIDWEST FOOD TRIP

By on 11 February, 2012 in Construction, History, Menu, Team, Training

Those of you who have been with us for a while know that once a year during our slow time (now) Rolando and I make a food pilgrimage. The first year it was to the West Coast where we checked out food trucks and coffee roasters (Intelligentsia, Barefoot, Ritual, Stumptown, Ecco). Last year we went down south to learn about Chicory Coffee in New Orleans and BBQ in Texas. We have an idea that someday we might open these trips up to customers and employees. Be warned, we eat ALOT. I’m guessing your gut is going to ache next week just reading the stories from afar.

This year we’re planning to introduce Frozen Custard at the HUB. So we’re off to Milwaukee, capital of frozen custard. We’ll hit some new roasters we’ve been dying to add to the line-up (Alterra, La Columbe Torrefection), and check out the food in a few cities we haven’t been to for a while.

This year’s trip is going to have a twist: we’re picking up the newest step-van. So Rolando and I are going to be trucking across the middle of the country.

I’m including our itinerary Continue Reading →

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Kind of like planes taking off at the airport

By on 10 February, 2012 in History, Operations, Team, Training

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We load our trucks every morning. My first day in 2008, I met Ayr at 5am at Nuestra in JP to train on opening the truck. We rolled a green cage packed with prepped food to the loading dock, loaded individual food items by hand, and drove off.

The second phase was this crazy picture. We would start at Harvard, use the DWY truck to load 2 trucks’ worth of food and equipment. We pulled up a very packed DWY to the back of MIT, unloaded all of MIT’s pack, and then drove to Dewey Square.

We’ve finally reached something a little smoother: all trucks loading at the HUB and driving off to their locations. It feels good to get to that place. And it sort of feels like planes taking off at the airport.

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Knife Skills in the snow

By on 31 January, 2011 in Customers, History, Team, Training

We were planning these IAP knife skills classes. I kept saying to Ayr, maybe we should have this inside in a classroom? I thought no one would come if we had it at the truck (I’m from Texas, still haven’t quite gotten used to New England winters). Ayr said no, keep it at the truck.

The snow started Wednesday during the first class. Rolando was chopping up butternut squash dusted in snow. On Thursday, when we planned to have the second class, Boston got hit with another big snowstorm. We had to close for breakfast to shovel out the trucks. It was 28 degrees around lunchtime. And I couldn’t have been more wrong about the turnout that afternoon. I think I counted about 35 folks. Really awesome.

We kept it simple: how to hold a knife, cut onions, chop small pieces for quick cooking times and big pieces for slow cooking times, break big vegetables down into shapes that are easy to hold and cut. Rolando answered a bunch of questions, someone asked him to do a fancy cut from his fine dining days. If you came to the class, let us know what you thought, if there was stuff you would have liked to learn about that we didn’t cover. More pictures after the break.

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-4°F

By on 24 January, 2011 in Customers, History, Operations, Team, Training

If you live in Boston you’ve noticed that it’s cold today. -15°F last night. I don’t want anybody getting frost bite, etc. Vincenzo and I talked about it last night and we decided to run lunch only at the MIT location today. So Dewey (Greenway) is shut down all day, and MIT is open for lunch only (11am – 2pm).

Sorry to all who are going to miss us today. Bring your appetite tomorrow. Things will be back to normal. And when you stop by MIT for lunch today thank those New England warriors making sure you’re fed. Thanks all.

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Hicka-what?

By on 22 January, 2011 in Customers, History, Menu, Training

The latest seasonal sandwich is the Sweet Potato. This is a revised version of a sandwich we first tried last year. Middle of the winter is a great time for tubers (potatoes and stuff that hold over the winter), and for produce from other parts of the world. Rolando makes this with a cilantro soy spread, roasted sweet potatoes (they are a little spicy), and jicama slaw.

So what is Jicama? Rolando describes it as a cross Continue Reading →

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