Sara Menker and Gro Intelligence Are Tackling Global Hunger, With a Little Help From Gro: The Story of a Food Truck That Sells Food to People in Need
The food truck revolution has reached a new level, but in its first year its impact is much bigger than you can imagine. With its ability to reach a broader audience with the same message, Gro Intelligence takes a look at how it’s doing that one year in.
For Gro Intelligence, this year’s annual food truck roundup is about more than just one hot-air balloon-esque mobile kitchen. It’s about a team of food truck entrepreneurs (at least on paper) that’s changing the face of what it means to eat in our culture, and how we can be part of it all.
Since its first summer in 2014, the Gro Intelligence brand has grown to include a full range of food trucks, from casual to formal, and from casual to upscale. As of August 2017, Gro Intelligence is on its way to being an industry leader, boasting more than half-a-dozen food trucks in Seattle and beyond.
But a big part of this success has been thanks to Sara Menker, who’s leading the Gro Intelligence team, and the hard work of her team.
For Menker, the food truck revolution has its roots in the 2008 recession that hit hard. Looking for ways to survive, she opened her food truck in downtown Seattle’s Pike Place Market for a day in 2009 – something she still does occasionally – to find food that was in short supply. But Menker didn’t let the chance to find food go. Instead she started working with restaurants and chefs to source local and regional ingredients, and by 2012 she had a full repertoire of foods, from salads to meatballs to baked goods.
That all changed in 2013, when Menker’s husband, Jason, a chef himself, and the business partners they had been building started Gro Intelligence. With Menker’s help and