Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 20 SEPTEMBER 2019 E AT + D R I N K PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANTHONY TIEULI Family Dinner brings the farmer's market to you. BY ALEX ANDRA PECCI FRESH AND LOCAL COMES HOME edge data science garnered from years at MIT. "Family Dinner is a farmer's market delivery service, but it's also a company that's trying to use data to change the food supply chain, to change the way food gets to people's tables," says Topsfield native Erin Baumgartner, CEO and co-founder of Family Dinner. Baumgartner started the company with her husband, Tim Fu, after spending 11 years working at MIT, most recently as assistant director of the MIT Senseable City Lab. Although Family Dinner shares some characteristics with community-supported agriculture and subscription-based meal kits, its real differentiator is the science. "Sticking a layer of data science on top of it makes it a little bit different," Baumgartner says. Family Dinner uses a subscription-based e-commerce platform where orders process weekly. Because customers can choose to opt out, rather than opt in, each week, Family Dinner can order supply from the farmers that meets the exact weekly demand, which in turn helps eliminate waste. They also use predictive analytics to look into the future with farmers and strategize about how they should plan their crops based on how many subscribers Family Dinner predicts it will have. "It's just a If there's a food industry unicorn, it's this: a system for delivering fresh, local products to consumers with minimal food waste and packaging, all while supporting small producers, lessening the carbon footprint, providing a wide variety of foods year-round for complete meals, and making everything taste great to boot. Somerville-based Family Dinner has taken us a big step closer to that ideal, thanks to a business model that marries the age-old tradition of knowing your farmer with cutting- Erin Baumgartner is the co-founder and CEO of Family Dinner.