Everybody’s Got To Eat feat. Turner Hoff ‘13

Owl Have You Know

Turner Hoff grew up in a family of real estate entrepreneurs. When he was young, his goal was to work in construction like his father. After undergrad, he spent two years working with his father, redeveloping and flipping single-family homes in Houston, and joined Rice Business’ Full-Time MBA program in 2011, seeking a deeper understanding of real estate finance and professional experience in the field.

Shortly after leaving Rice and moving to D.C., Turner met Ariane Valle – his girlfriend and the co-founder of their food delivery service Vegetable and Butcher. They shared an interest in health and wellness, and a “food as medicine” philosophy. Vegetable and Butcher is celebrating their sixth year anniversary this year.

Turner joins host Maya Pomroy to talk about creating a company to solve his own frustrations in the food delivery space, vertical integration, and how the food tech space has developed over the years and through the pandemic.

Owl Have You Know is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Connecting and immersing yourself in community

25:32 - If you have some idea for the industry you want to be involved in, do everything you can to immerse yourself in that community. I've found that people are generally open to and genuinely enjoy being helpful to others. So just finding opportunities to connect and immerse yourself in a particular community. Rice and the business school do a great job teaching you what it means to network and different ways to go about it.

Being able to grow efficiently as a company

16:33 - The efficiency component came from raising very little capital, and it's forced us to be a very resourceful, scrappy team. And there are advantages and disadvantages to that. But it put us in a position of strength ultimately in the end because we've had to be exceptionally resourceful to get to where we are today.

Putting heavy emphasis on the product and experience

05:55 - In this market, it's not about being first to market but about getting the product and experience right, which is why we've placed such a heavy emphasis on it.

Show Links:

• Transcript

Guest Profile:

• Turner Hoff LinkedIn
• Vegetable & Butcher
• Vegetable & Butcher Instagram
• Netcito
• Lilie Lab | Rice University

Listen to OWL entrepreneurs Hassan Panahi, Taylor Ann Adams, and Delaney Berman in this episode titled "Giving Entrepreneurs the Tools to Change the World" here: https://business.rice.edu/owlhaveyouknow-season-3-episode-19