At some restaurants, putting a new dish on the menu involves a level of research and analysis that make the process a logistical nightmare. At Sprig, it's just another day.
The earthy-crunchy food delivery startup has carved a niche in the on-demand space for its focus on R&D. Each meal is developed and prepared in the company's San Francisco and Chicago kitchens, and the menu looks different from one day to the next. Sprig mines data and customer reviews to continuously iterate on recipes, making sure users get what they want.
Customers use an app to order the meals, which cost between $11 and $15, plus a $2.75 delivery fee. The service isn't cheap, but it surpasses other food delivery startups in terms of quality of ingredients and transparency in nutritional value.
Tech Insider recently had the chance to follow Jessica Entzel, executive R&D chef at Sprig, into the kitchen where the magic happens.
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As the company's first employee back in 2013, Jessica Entzel sort of doubles as the staff matriarch. She leads the R&D team responsible for creating Sprig's menu.
Each week, she doles out recipe-creation assignments like homework. A team of data and market researchers and operations managers presents a theme for a dish that they think would perform well based on past user preferences.
The four-person R&D team gathers at the table and spitballs. "We all piggyback off the same idea," Entzel says. "Nobody owns one idea."
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