Jonathan Yale has always been socially conscious. As an athlete, he is also concerned about what foods he puts into his body. Those two principles came together when Yale and Phillip Williams founded
HooftyMatch last August, an online marketplace for buying and selling locally produced meats.
“It started from a nutritional aspect,” says Yale. “I actually went to farms and bought some whole animals. I started educating myself on all the different factors of why it’s better meat.”
Yale and Williams came up with the idea for HooftyMatch after seeing a booming trend in farm-to-table eating and a strong desire to consume meat from humanely treated animals.
“We focus on farmers and the trend of beef without hormones or antibiotics,” says Yale. “We want to make that higher-quality product easier to get into the market. We want to have a consumer-friendly product where our customers can buy directly from our site and have it shipped to them or they can pick it up from a set location.”
A portfolio company in
LaunchHouse Accelerator, HooftyMatch received a $25,000 investment. The company also won
Startup Lakewood’s Ideation Challenge last summer.
Yale plans on starting a monthly Cleveland Meat Series with "localvore" restaurants to market HooftyMatch and educate people. “There are definitely people who want this and we want to say it’s out there,” he says. “It's good for farmers, it’s good for the restaurant business, and it’s good for people. It’s kind of like a win-win-win.”
HooftyMatch plans to officially launch its site next month.
This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland, our sister publication in Northeast Ohio.
Source: Jonathan Yale
Writer: Karin Connelly