Local food tour company pivots to offer curated boxes of local food and beverages during shutdown

Local food tour company River City Food Tours is pivoting to offer curated Discover Richmond Box this week. Called the Discover Richmond Box, the offering is a non-subscription, weekly collection of items from Richmond’s favorite food makers, delivered to Richmonders’ front door. Each week’s box features a mix of food vendors, including a variety of savory, sweet, and hearty items, as well as a bag of coffee or tea.

Owners say the Discover Richmond Boxes help support small food businesses in and around Richmond, allowing them to provide work and help pay operating expenses, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. River City Food Tours purchases all of the products from participating food partners.

“River City Food Tours truly understands the devastation this crisis has caused small businesses,” said founder Brian Beard. “We dropped to zero sales basically overnight. This Discover Richmond Box is not only a great way for us to revamp our business model during this pandemic, but we’re also able to continue to support many other small businesses every week.”

Partners include, but are not limited to, Bombolini Pasta, Truckle Cheesemongers, Reginald’s Homemade, Riverbend Coffee Co., and Chocolates by Kelly. While boxes currently contain only shelf-stable goods, an expansion plan to include cold and frozen items, as well as produce, is in the works.

“We’re excited to be able to offer a little bit of everything in these boxes,” Beard added. “We’ve all got to eat, but we also need to indulge every once in a while, and these boxes let you do both.”

A limited quantity of boxes are available each week; this week there are only 40 for sale. Sales go live each Sunday at noon on River City Food Tours’ website, and close Friday at 5 pm. Boxes are then organized and delivered to customers’ front doors on Sundays between 10 am and 2 pm. Discover Richmond Boxes are currently only available for delivery, but pickup options will become available in the near future, Beard says.