Houston catering startup taps new tech to pivot to meal prepping during the coronavirus shutdown

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Wolfe & Wine Co. is using a new software to dispatch meals to hospital workers as well as new meal prep customers. Getty Images

With an abundance of Houston restaurant and business closures spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, small company leaders are forced to develop resourceful solutions to keep afloat and compensate for slowed revenue.

Founder and chef of Houston-based Wolfe & Wine Co., Daniel Wolfe, has rejigged his social-focused business model to cater single-meal orders instead of large group orders.

Wolfe & Wine Co. is a full-service, chef-driven catering company, specializing in pop-up dinners paired with specially curated wines. Launched only a few short months ago in September 2019, Wolfe was looking forward to expanding his business across the Houston metroplex in 2020, one specially-catered social gathering at a time. His plans changed in March, when COVID-19 began to ingratiate itself in pockets of Houston.

"My business model thrives on events with more than 10 people, so we pivoted our focus to meal prep," Wolfe says.

Within 72 hours in March, Wolfe lost around $70,000 worth of revenue with the cancelation of all of his upcoming catering events, then feeling the first wave of economic and logistical impacts of COVID-19. However, Wolfe faced these hurdles with innovative and community-focused solutions that have already sustained his business and benefitted thousands of Houstonians whose lives have been affected by the coronavirus.

With the help of food service supplier Ben E. Keith Co. and cloud-based delivery management software company Dispatch Science, Wolfe & Wine Co. received the financial and technological sponsorship needed to provide single meals to his customers, and to donate meals to medical staff, including the entire Houston Methodist Emergency Room and ICU departments, and Houstonians in need.

"The dispatch software that we use is similar to what UPS, FedEx and Amazon use. When you order with us, you can track where your meal is in real time…That transparency separates us from [other meal prep companies]," Wolfe says.

Since producing single-order meal prep packages for his customers, Wolfe has noted that the two biggest challenges he has faced have been altering his recipes to accommodate single servings, and striving to maintain the same high-quality, personalized customer experience that he provides at his catering events.

In various industries, not only in Houston but across the globe, there will be elements of business that are forced to restructure, to accommodate the new economic and logistical boundaries brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This virus is forcing people to innovate, forcing people stuck in their ways to change and adapt, or they'll fail," Wolfe says.

For the hospitality industry specifically, Wolfe foresees that restaurants' refined food takeout processes, along with the delivery of liquor, beer and wine, will play a huge role in their fiscal well-being after this health crisis subsides.

"Businesses that said 'we're not doing takeout' are now doing takeout because they don't have a choice," Wolfe says. "In the next few months, you're going to see a lot more offerings for takeout and delivery. You're going to see a lot more refined and better customer experiences for takeout, especially with millennials."

Sharpened takeout programs and alcohol delivery are projected to revolutionize the food and beverage industry, Wolfe says. In addition to enhanced technological components and takeout processes, community stewardship has been a main theme within the industry, Wolfe noted.

"The hospitality industry, nurses, grocery stores and others, those are the people carrying the country through this pandemic," Wolfe says. "You're not just some kid flipping a burger or stocking a box on a shelf."

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From hiring tips to AI's impact on the workforce, here's what guest columns were the most read in 2024

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Editor's note: Every week, InnovationMap runs one or two guest columns written by tech entrepreneurs, public relations experts, data geniuses, and more. As Houston's innovation ecosystem gets ready for 2025, here are some of this year's top guest contributor pieces — each with pertinent information and advice for startups both at publishing and into the new year. Make sure to click through to continue reading each piece.

Is your New Year's resolution to start contributing? Email natalie@innovationmap.com to learn more.

How to avoid bad hiring decisions when it matters most, according to this Houston expert

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Hiring the right people for the right roles is ideal and can make an organization reach new heights. The reality is every business has made a bad hire.

Finding the wrong fit for a team or organization is not uncommon, but it is important to know what it costs the organization, which can be detrimental to company finances and its workplace culture, especially small businesses and startups where the impact is magnified.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports a bad hire can cost up to 30 percent of the employee’s wage, which would be approximately $18,000 since the average American wage is $60,000. In addition, there are soft costs of managers and leadership time during the hiring and training process, which adds up quickly. Continue reading.

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For the past 14 months, everyone has been talking about ways artificial intelligence is changing the world, and product management is not an exception. The challenge, as with every new technology, is not only adopting it but understanding what old habits, workflows, and processes are affected by it.

Product managers — as well as startup founders leading a product function — more than any other role, face a challenge of bringing new life-changing products to market that may or may not be received well by their users. A product manager’s goal is complex — bring value, stay ahead of the competition, be innovative. Yet, the "behind the scenes" grind requires endless decision making and trade offs to inspire stakeholders to move forward and deliver.

As we dive into 2024, it is obvious that AI tools do not only transform the way we work but also help product managers create products that exceed customer expectation and drive businesses forward. Continue reading.

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Approximately 20 percent of Americans, which is 50 million people (about twice the population of Texas), are experiencing a mental illness, 15 percent of Americans had a substance use disorder in the past year and nearly 5 percent, over 12.1 million adults, reported serious thoughts of suicide (Mental Health America). Notably, certain professions, such as construction, exhibit higher suicide rates, (CDC). With these staggering numbers, the foundation of workplace safety extends beyond physical well-being to encompass psychological health.

The landscape has undergone a transformation, stemming from the pandemic, and the stigma of mental health concerns and seeking help has loosened. Recognizing that September is Suicide Prevention Month, below are three ways businesses of every size can actively support the mental well-being of their employees. Continue reading.

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Rice University, Houston Methodist launch new institute to revolutionize health care through AI, innovation

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Rice University and Houston Methodist have established through a multi-year joint effort the Digital Health Institute, which aims to transform healthcare through advanced technology and the collaborative expertises of the university and hospital.

Rice’s leadership in engineering, digital health and artificial intelligence will combine with Houston Methodist’s academic medicine and research infrastructure.

“This partnership embodies Rice’s bold vision to lead at the forefront of innovation in health and responsible AI,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches says in a news release. “By combining our strengths with Houston Methodist, we are creating a transformative platform to address critical challenges in healthcare with solutions that are ethical, accessible and impactful. This initiative exemplifies our commitment to driving interdisciplinary collaboration and advancing global health for the benefit of humanity.”

Leading the initiative will be Rice’s Ashutosh Sabharwal, the Ernest Dell Butcher Professor of Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Houston Methodist’s Dr. Khurram Nasir, the Centennial Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine, and Dr. William Zoghbi, division chief of cardiovascular prevention and wellness. Rice and Houston Methodist have worked previously with the Center for Neural Systems Restoration that opened earlier this year and the Center for Human Performance that was established in 2022.

The Digital Health Institute allows for both institutions to share data, and resources that focus on key areas like the early detection through AI algorithms for early diagnosis of cancer, infections, cardiovascular diseases and other conditions, predictive analytics that utilize real-time monitoring that can predict and prevent events such as strokes and heart failure, and the development of novel sensors, wearables and ingestibles to innovate new remote monitoring and care pathways.

The Digital Health Institute will also work to utilize more personalized medicine efforts, developments of new novel and assistive technologies, expansion of telemedicine, and proactive self-care management through AI-driven patient self-management.

“This partnership between our institutions marks a bold new chapter in driving meaningful innovation at the intersection of healthcare and technology through solutions that are both visionary and practical,” Dr. Marc Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist, adds. “Our long-standing relationship with Rice University has produced impactful collaborations, but this initiative is by far the most transformative endeavor in our shared commitment of leading medicine through innovation.”

Rice President Reginald DesRoches and Houston Methodist CEO Marc Boom announced the new partnership at the Ion. Photo courtesy of Rice

Elon Musk wants to turn SpaceX's Starbase site into a Texas city

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SpaceX is launching a new mission: making its Starbase site a new Texas city.

Billionaire Elon Musk 's company last week sent a letter to local officials requesting an election to turn what it calls Starbase — the South Texas site where SpaceX builds and launches its massive Starship rockets — into an incorporated city. Residents of the area known as Starbase submitted the petition, according to the company.

The area is on the southern tip of Texas at Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border. Earlier this year, Musk announced he was moving the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas.

“To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That is why we are requesting that Cameron County call an election to enable the incorporation of Starbase as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley,” Kathryn Lueders, the general manager of Starbase, wrote in a letter to the county.

It's not the first time turning Starbase into its own city has been floated. Musk proposed the idea in 2021 when he wrote a social media post that simply said, “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas.”

Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county’s top elected official, said despite the talks of incorporation in 2021, this was the first time a petition was officially filed.

“Our legal and elections administration will review the petition, see whether or not it complied with all of the statutory requirements and then we’ll go from there," Treviño said on Thursday.

More than 3,400 full-time SpaceX employees and contractors work at the Starbase site, according to a local impact study issued by Trevino earlier this year.

SpaceX's rapid expansion in the region has drawn pushback from some locals. Earlier this year, a group called Save RGV sued the company in July over allegations of environmental violations and dumping polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX said in response that a state review found no environmental risks and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

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