PPB June 2021

moment of there’s all these cool food brands that exist in the U.S.,” he says. “Why aren’t they in the promotional products industry?” That question led Lucash to create Batch & Bodega in August 2020, an upscale take on customizable food gift boxes that focus primarily on promoting makers’ stories. “It’s crazy that I learned so much about the food industry in a year after knowing nothing as a previous tech guy,” says Lucash. “I mean, I could tell you how to build a speaker or a power bank with all the necessary testing requirements like the back of my hand, but I knew none of that with food. I learned on- the-fly from working with our makers.” In April, a fresh food line was added to the premium food kits, expanding the unique offerings and tapping into a new market in the promo industry. “All of the food gifts I have ever gotten from the promo industry have been lackluster,” says Lucash. “There’s no nutrition facts or origin stories, and that’s when it clicked in my head: If someone could bring in these cool food brands with amazing stories behind them, support small businesses and flip the food model on its head in our sector, they would do really well.” Last August, HPG accelerated the launch of the new food gift brand, shipping exclusive, award-winning snacks from across the U.S. in giftable kits. “I ran my own company for 10 years with over 100 people, and now with HPG, there are 1,000 employees working here and it allows for things to get done much faster. Batch & Bodega was able to launch so quickly because of the teams of people working together, which is one of the reasons why I sold my company to HPG.” Lucash says he built the Batch & Bodega industry supplier model very similarly to his company, Origaudio. “No minimum, no set-up fees, full digital printing and shipping in three days or less,” says Lucash. “My partner Mike [Szymczak] and I started the industry trend for this model many years ago with Origaudio and it caught on with other suppliers trying to adopt it. I said, ‘If we are as successful with Batch & Bodega as we were with Origaudio, we will continue to gain major market share. If you look at all the other suppliers in the food sector, they have high minimums, long lead times, and you can’t order just one, which is unfortunate for such a gift- heavy sector.” But what really makes Batch & Bodega stand out are the people behind each specialty snack. “We are leading with the makers’ stories,” says Lucash. “If you go to the Batch & Bodega website, we market the makers’ stories more than the Batch story, because it’s about the makers making that food. For me, that’s actually one of the most rewarding things about doing Batch & Bodega because I was a small-business owner and now, I am supporting other small-business owners. Especially during the pandemic, we really kept a lot of these businesses afloat with some having to move into bigger factories because of the demand we’ve created for them—which is awesome.” For potential Batch makers, Lucash says there are five checks and balances they must pass. “First, what’s the maker story?” says Lucash. “Second, prior to us launching “Great ideas are successful because nothing has been done that way before. ” —Jason Lucash Jason Lucash's favorite batch kit, the "Speakeasy." | JUNE 2021 | 85 CONNECT