Jason Gries

NASHVILLE Founder-CEO and Majority Owner Jason Gries's Bitetime Kitchens LLC produces and delivers 18 core-brand meal cuisines from its own kitchens for corporate and industrial customers -- and it is piloting home-meals deliveries for "families on the go."

The growth-oriented company is Angel-backed, cashflow positive and operating here and in Atlanta.

Gries confirmed he is networking ahead of raising the company's first round of venture capital within the next nine months.

Since inception in 2012, the company has raised $1MM.

Its angel investors include AtlantaArea- and Florida-based Price Harding, who is managing partner of Terminus Ventures and chairman and founding partner of executive search firm, CarterBaldwin.

Gries, 55, describes Bitetime as a tech-enabled, vertically integrated catering company, with headquarters here, and with its own kitchens and delivery teams both here and in Atlanta.

The company's website shows a sample of employers whose teams and team families it has served, including Bridgestone, CINTAS, HCA Healthcare, Dell, Vanderbilt University, Accenture, Asurion and Schneider Electric.

Each year, the growing Bitetime system supports more than 1,500 employers, large and small.

The Bitetime line includes chicken, BBQ, Brazilian, Mexican, FreshCali bowls, American Grill, Home cooking, hoagies, Caribbean, Island grill, Cajun, Greek, Thai, Italian, Southern and Tailgate, as well as breakfasts, salads, desserts and non-alcoholic drinks.

The founder estimated there are at least 50 attractive U.S. markets for Bitetime.

Expansion priorities currently include five markets within a five-hour drive of Nashville: Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis and St. Louis. Corporate services is Bitetime's priority.

Supporting its Nashville and Atlanta Markets, the company has a dozen employees and a dozen contract delivery drivers. Geo-expansion plans call for hiring further culinary, customer success and related personnel, said Gries.

Bitetime's Nashville kitchen

The CEO said Nashville-based Director of Customer Success Sarah McNeal and Director of Culinary Operations Mat Otter are leading the Atlanta expansion. Bitetime plans to add culinary, customer success, and others in each market.

Gries said Bitetime technology is managed by son Spencer Gries, a Purdue University computer-engineering grad, who also oversees a contract group of six technologists.

He said Bitetime has deferred creating a mobile app, because its priority is corporate and industrial catering customers, with whom relationships are invariably conducted via desktops.

The company's advisors include attorney Chris Sloan of Baker Donelson and accountants with KraftCPAs. Bitetime banks with Regions.

Asked about competitors, Gries said that he views neither very large long-term contract food service businesses -- e.g., Sodexo, Aramark, Compass Groups, et al -- nor myriad food-service brokers as his competition.

Moreover, he said he has thus far found no retail chain (e.g., Chipotle) nor any other entrant with services that he would benchmark against.

Prospective customers seeking a meeting venue as well as upmarket catered food may opt to gather with up to 40 persons in meeting space now available in Bitetime's innovation center.

BACKSTORY

The company operated quite differently 2012-17, when its model was that of a food-services broker offering only delivery of meals from Chinese-cuisine restaurants in Nashville, Atlanta and five other U.S. markets.

Eight years ago, it left that brokerage role behind and is diligent in underscoring that it is not a broker of meals from other kitchens.

Click picture above for details.

Though the company had earlier operated under a series of cuisine-specific trade names, in 2017 Gries rebranded the business as Bitetime, with pure emphasis on internal production and delivery of individually branded cuisines.

Gries said his original meal-delivery brokerage business came to a full stop for about four months during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing him to layoff all staff and focus on his Nashville homebase.

As Nashvillians resumed circulating beyond their homes and professionals made it back to their offices, orders for high-quality meals for workers and conferees began the steep climb upward, with particular interest from managers of healthcare practices.

Bitetime is Gries's second entrepreneurial investment.

Earlier, Gries co-founded Alpharetta, Ga.-based Industriaplex Inc. ("IPLEX"), a global supply-chain management and industrial branded-products company with 150 employees in the U.S., China, India, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

That company quickly grew annual revenue to $98MM, ranking IPLEX #56 on the 2008 Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies roster.

Gries told VNC that he "primarily bootstrapped IPLEX" with a single global logistics company's minority investment interest of less than 5% interest. LinkedIn postings indicate Gries's IPLEX co-founder was one of his former colleagues, Michael Plaia.

Gries said IPLEX operations ceased during the Great Recession because two customers, Chrysler (2009) and Circuit City (2008), sought bankruptcy protection after owing IPLEX an aggregate $5MM. Gries was forced to layoff 150 employees and close the doors.

During his seven-plus years with General Electric, Gries said he periodically worked with legendary GE CEO Jack Welch.

At GE, Gries's duties were primarily related to GE mergers, acquisitons and audits. Gries's LinkedIn is here.

Gries is originally from Fort Branch, Ind., near Evansville and a 3-hour drive from Purdue University, where in 1991 he earned his bachelor's in aerospace engineering.

Gries and his wife have six children (four male, two female) and they reside in Williamson County.

POSTSCRIPT

Though the Great Recession contributed to the closure of IPLEX, Bitetime's emergence came as sector disruptor and Great Recession survivor Grubhub began making acquisitions and drawing wide attention to the food-services sector.

In 2021, Grubhold sold to Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway (Amsterdam:TKWY) for $7.3BN.

In January this year, Just Eat Takeaway completed its sale of Grubhub to New York City-based Wonder Group Inc. for a reported $650MM. Wonder is led by Marc Lore. VNC

.last edited 10 June 2025 1339