Joe Ariel, Goldbelly Founder & CEO joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss how the e-commerce food plaform saw sales skyrocket last year.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Well, food delivery has been a very important piece of the way we've all been able to live our lives here in the pandemic, not just Uber Eats and DoorDash delivering you food from local restaurants, but also Goldbelly playing its part to help people who may have relocated, including yours truly, still access the favorite restaurants that they had in their old hometowns.

That's exactly what Goldbelly does, pairing some cuisines, we're talking deep dish from Chicago getting shipped across the country. It saw its sales quadruple last year, more than quadruple last year. And joining us now for more on the details there is the founder and CEO of Goldbelly. Joe Ariel joins us right now. Joe, I mean, when we look at the demand out there for home, you know the feeling of home, to me, food's so important, but talk to me about the growth you saw in the pandemic as people were placing orders from all over.

JOE ARIEL: Yeah, it's been a crazy time, Zack. I know you know, like as a customer, we've been a fast growing startup for a long time. But this past year or so, obviously our trajectory changed. And two core reasons for that. Like one of those is if you're a customer, if you're a food lover, you miss foods from places you love, places you've grown up. And you can have them shipped in a box to your door. And it can be the epicenter of an experience that you can have with loved ones. It's been a really magical experience. And so on the customer side, north of 300% growth.

And then on the food makers' side, you know in retail there's a word called omnichannel that everybody talks about in every industry except food. And what we've done, is we've created an omnichannel future for the local restaurants to be able to enter an e-commerce economy, shipping their food nationwide. And that's been magical and kept a lot of businesses afloat, and even some growing with their growing Goldbelly sales.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, it's awesome to see, particularly when some restaurants are facing shutdowns from local customers, and broadening it out to people all over the US, I think obviously would help in that. When you look at maybe how it's changed recently though, because we keep talking about keeping some of the customers that would come to platforms like yours once we reopen, have you seen maybe a slowdown there? What's it look like now?

JOE ARIEL: Yeah, I mean, first of all, as restaurant and food lovers, as travel lovers, we can't wait for things to open up and open up more, and that's exciting. Early on as we're looking at the numbers, no real drop-off. I think tailwinds obviously from stuff that happened in the past year or so, but at the end of the day, we've obtained more than a million new customers who had fallen in love with a new experience of getting food in a box that travels across the country for them.

So I think, we think the world's changed in a lot of ways, and certainly the food world, as we think of the future of food e-commerce. We think we've created a new category, which is food experiences that you love the most, where geography all of a sudden doesn't matter.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and obviously, there's no time like now, when people haven't necessarily been going to these restaurants. To be able to travel to go experience that, it's a perfect time for something like Goldbelly, and maybe why my little brother gave me a Goldbelly gift card. I don't know, it was his gift idea. But when we look at maybe which regions of the US deserve to be crowned some of the best food cities, I mean, what do you see on the platform in terms of demand from certain areas over others?

JOE ARIEL: You know, that's a question that varies on a month by month basis. But I think the best data point would be, we actually had city food subscriptions. And so it might not be a surprise to many, but New York is the top seller in that batch, just because there's so many great restaurants and brands. But there's a couple of other big ones. And me personally, as a native New Yorker, but who really fell in love with food on a deeper level in the South, I look at a place like New Orleans, and there's a New Orleans food subscription. Some of the most creative and unique and interesting foods in the US, certainly New Orleans.

And you may know. Zack, but we actually launched at a Y Combinator in San Francisco. And San Francisco obviously, lots of talented food makers, iconic foods. And then you can't forget Chicago where you were born. Great food city as well. So a lot of great food cities. It all really depends on like what you love. But I think you think of New York, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans. LA, and my adopted hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Another great one as well.

ZACK GUZMAN: Oh, yeah, yeah. you can't leave that one off the list here. But I mean, when you talk about growth and where this goes, it's interesting to see companies that had enjoyed big booms in the pandemic. I'm thinking Airbnb, who's kind of extending into experiences here. I know you guys raised a Series C $100 million funding round not too long ago. When you think about where Goldbelly goes next, what are maybe the dreams to extend the platform maybe beyond the US or beyond just ordering food? What else do you see there in kind of what you guys do best?

JOE ARIEL: Yeah, so there's like 300,000 independent restaurants in the US. We work with about 850 right now. And we just feel that every town has a hometown favorite, a food that you love, a food maker that the town takes pride in. And so we want to connect all those dots and really empower people to connect with the people, the places, the foods, the memories that are meaningful to them.

So I think as we grow, we feel like there's so much room in the US. But I will say, your question's timing is interesting, because just a few minutes ago we actually launched our first international chef out of Argentina, a chef named Francis Mallmann, who you may have seen on "Chef's Table," who does these legendary asado kits on these beautiful fire pits with hanging meats and vegetables and empanadas. And so we're actually shipping his food anywhere in the US literally as of a few minutes ago.

ZACK GUZMAN: Good God, all right. We got to leave it there. They told me to wrap, but I mean, we could go on for days. You're talking to a guy who's got a meatstagram account, studied abroad in Argentina too. But Jerry Ariel, appreciate you coming on here. Goldbelly founder and CEO, congrats on the growth, man. Be well.