Meet Charles Duke of To-Table

Today we’d like to introduce you to Charles Duke.

Charles, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Cooking and what you eat is now a lifestyle statement. Beyond the quality, taste, and new flavors, home cooks increasingly must also be assured that the foods with which they cook support their health and the health of the environment.

I, personally, am a home cook and foodie, and I found myself stuck in a cooking rut with only the narrow range of traditional foods readily available and set out to discover a new way to keep my cooking passion fresh and interesting. What I created in researching and developing To-Table resonates with passionate home cooks throughout the Rocky Mountain West.

I come to the food retailing world with a varied thirty-eight-year background in commercial banking, investment banking, and real estate investment, and my longest project (19 years) as the founder and president of a remanufacturer of recycled inkjet cartridges with a factory in Mexico on the US border. Spotting needs in the market and working to fill them pushes me to keep examining various opportunities – which is how I found myself in the food business.

As food production became more industrial in the middle of the last century, not only was the flavor diluted, the environment polluted, the grasslands destroyed and the soils eroded, the wild populations depleted, and unhealthy chemicals and antibiotics added, but the variety of foods was significantly narrowed. The vast majority of what we now eat are three proteins (beef, pork, and chicken), three grains (corn, wheat, and rice) and three seafood staples (shrimp, tuna, and salmon). For many cooks, especially the passionate foodies, the key ingredient to interesting cooking is variety. Variety propels menus for special gatherings from mundane to delightful and captivating. Variety, in and of itself, also reduces the negative effects of the industrial production of just a few foods.

I wanted, and I knew my customers would want, to benefit from the broad experience and knowledge of the region’s greatest professional chefs concerning which foods from which vendors honored the sustainable characteristics we sought while delivering the greatest flavors. The chefs we enlisted enthusiastically helped us identify the most interesting foods that could not easily be found in the quality necessary or were just not carried by local grocers. The farmers, fishermen, foragers, ranchers, and artisans selected now ship directly to our customers ensuring the highest quality and freshest product. We are unique in our unique variety of the best and most interesting food ingredients.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We have encountered three major obstacles along the way. First, the food producers have been accustomed to a distribution model that never included direct shipments to the customer. Helping our producers understand the benefits of jumping channels in a new online retailing world was difficult and not all were or are willing to work in this fashion. But for those who took the leap, they are increasingly pleased with the results.

Second, our retail customers are often worried that they do not have the skills to incorporate the variety of foods into their dishes. “How do I use sea beans in a salad, how would I roast goose or heritage turkey to perfection, or how can I take advantage of the freshly foraged morels or lobster mushrooms in my meal”. This lack of confidence is unfounded and we have been working with our customers through a significant quantity of great recipes and techniques that we provide to fortify the cooks’ resolve to move to a new, higher and more interesting level of cooking.

Finally, the cost of shipping has been a difficult problem. Ninety percent of our products are perishable and must be shipped overnight or two-day service. We have incorporated recyclable insulated packaging to reduce the environmental impact of our product, but the cost of the shipping service has been an issue. We have just entered into a relationship with a fulfillment company whose innovated ways to ship from our producers at much-reduced rates from the shipping companies.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the To-Table story. Tell us more about the business.
As compared to either coast, the Rocky Mountain West is a food desert. But even in the more abundant food areas, access to the wide variety of special foods that do not sell with the frequency that allows local retailers to carry them in inventory is limited at best. To-Table’s program to ship direct from the producers enables customers to source these hard to find foods at the highest quality and freshness.

There are many specialty food retailers who ship processed, canned or bottled foods as they are cheap to ship, but an online market for perishable foods that include great cheeses, fresh seafood and shellfish, recently foraged wild vegetables, a wide variety of game, cuts of heritage and artisan raised beef, lamb and pork, unique vegetables, greens and fruits, and many other unique items is rarely found. The wide variety of foods coupled with direct from the source fulfillment makes our program different from the rest of the pack.

To-Table was also established as a B (Public Benefit) corporation with a mission to educate consumers on the environmental and health benefits of a diet using sustainable foods in the wide variety that nature provides. Additionally, we seek to provide a market to help the producers enjoy a more robust and growing demand for these beneficial and delicious products. We not only provide a convenient place for passionate and caring cooks to shop in one spot and stop, but we also produce recipes for less familiar foods and information on important issues in the food industry to our customers.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I am lucky to have been born with a streak of strong persistence. Sometimes that persistence has tempted me to stick with projects that should have been abandoned, but, in the main, it keeps me pushing through the many obstacles that starting a business throws up. The best result of my persistence is my wife of 36 years whose reaction to early invitations to date was less than enthusiastic. Putting my head down and pushing through in business is gratifying.

Contact Info:

• Website: To-Table.com
• Phone: 720-330-0441
• Email: cduke@To-Table.com
• Instagram: @ToTableInc
• Facebook: @ToTableInc

      Image Credit:
To-Table

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