Spork Bytes: “Local Restaurants Delivered to your Office”

Tim Taylor, co-founder of Spork Bytes, combined his passion for food and business to revolutionize group catering in Portland. Since launching the company in 2014 with a college friend, he has helped connect workplaces with over 70 local restaurants, making it easy to bring the city’s diverse culinary scene to offices and events. Committed to quality, community, and exceptional service, Tim continues to drive Spork Bytes’ mission to enrich connections through remarkable restaurant catering. DeliveryRank offers you an exclusive interview.

Spork Bytes started in 2014 as a bootstrapped venture by two college friends passionate about food and business. How has the company’s vision evolved over the years, and what have been some of the most significant milestones in its journey from a small startup to serving over a hundred companies?

Our initial vision was simple: provide office lunch delivery that brought great local food to corporate teams. Over the years, that vision has evolved into a comprehensive program that supports employee engagement and wellness through meal planning, professional setup, on-site service, and innovative ordering systems.

Today, we go beyond just delivering meals—we help office managers execute successful employee engagement programs by making group meals seamless and enjoyable. Some of our most significant milestones include:

• Completing over 20,000 catering orders for Portland-based companies.

• Distributing over $1 million annually to locally owned restaurants, strengthening the local economy.

• Developing Spork Box, a proprietary platform that empowers employees to choose their own meals within a company budget.

The company has distributed millions of dollars to locally owned restaurants and food purveyors, demonstrating a strong commitment to the community. Can you elaborate on the strategies and initiatives used to support and uplift small businesses in Portland?

Since day one, Spork Bytes has prioritized partnering exclusively with locally owned restaurants. Our approach involves an extensive onboarding process where we take the time to understand each partner’s systems, menus, and ingredient details. This process ensures that we can represent them accurately and provide a seamless catering experience.

We view ourselves as an extension of our restaurant partners—essentially their “catering department.” By offering detailed feedback and collaborating closely, we help our partners improve their offerings and identify opportunities for growth. The restaurants that engage with us most actively tend to see the greatest success through Spork Bytes.

Our mission is not just about catering—it’s about keeping dollars circulating locally to sustain Portland’s vibrant food scene and support local jobs.

In 2022, Spork Bytes partnered with GO Box to offer zero-waste catered meals using reusable containers. How has this initiative influenced your operations and client feedback, and what other sustainability practices have you implemented?

Our partnership with Bold Reuse (formerly GO Box) offers clients a near-zero-waste catering option by using reusable food containers. When clients opt for our cleanup service, we take it a step further:

• Our team returns to the office post-meal, cleans up, and donates any leftover food to local shelters, including Blanchet House, CityTeam Portland, and Urban Gleaners.

• Any food that isn’t donatable is composted at our headquarters, ensuring minimal waste.

Catering often generates significant waste, but we’re proving to our clients that it doesn’t have to. By providing sustainable catering options, we’re empowering companies to reduce their environmental footprint while enjoying exceptional meals.

The company provides a variety of catering options, including family-style buffets and inclusive meal choices for different dietary needs. How do you ensure that these customized solutions consistently meet the diverse needs and expectations of your clients?

We start by gathering detailed information from our restaurant partners during the onboarding process. Often, restaurants may not have answers to specific dietary questions—like whether a dish contains soy or gluten. It’s our job to dig deep and ensure this information is accurate before adding a restaurant’s menu to our platform.

Our proprietary system allows us to input detailed dietary information, which displays in menu form for clients and then appears as labeled information on meal deliveries. This attention to detail ensures that regardless of which restaurant our clients choose, they can trust that the delivery and setup experience will be consistent and meet the dietary preferences of their teams.

The corporate catering industry has seen significant changes in recent years, especially with shifts in workplace culture and hybrid work models. How has Spork Bytes adapted to these industry trends, and what strategies have you implemented to stay competitive in an evolving market?

The shift to hybrid work models has made it more challenging for office managers to predict headcounts for catering. Pre-pandemic, managers could reliably estimate attendance for office meals, but today, attendance can be unpredictable. To adapt, we’ve built more flexibility into our systems and created solutions to support evolving work environments.

Our most notable innovation is Spork Box, a platform that allows individual employees to log in, choose their preferred meal, and have it delivered with their name and dish clearly labeled. This solution takes the burden off office managers and puts the power in employees’ hands, allowing for personalized meals within a company’s budget.

As workplace models continue to evolve, we’re committed to investing in technologies and systems that facilitate connection through food—regardless of where people work.

Spork Bytes has always been about more than just catering—it’s about fostering connections through shared meals while supporting local businesses. As we move forward, we’re excited to continue evolving with the needs of our clients and driving positive impact in our community.

For more information about our catering services or to explore how Spork Bytes can simplify your office meal planning, visit https://www.sporkbytes.com/