Today we’d like to introduce you to Tammy Nelson.
Hi Tammy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up understanding food from both ends of the table. My dad was a farmer, and my mom was a restaurateur, so I learned very early where food started, how it was prepared, and what it meant to serve it to people.
Growing up in a place called Farmville, that connection always felt especially important to me. I wanted to build something around real food — whole food, scratch-made food, food that felt like it came from somebody’s kitchen instead of out of a box.
My own journey in the food business really started with the Sugar Magnolia food truck. It gave us a chance to get our food in front of people and start building relationships in the community. Pretty quickly, though, the catering side of the business became much more robust. I found that catering gave us an opportunity to make deeper connections with people because we were being invited into the moments that mattered to them — weddings, celebrations, business events, family gatherings, community functions, and everything in between.
That was really where the business started to take shape.
As the catering side continued to grow, so did the vision for what we could become. One event led to another, customers came back, word of mouth spread, and we built the business largely through relationships. Over time, that evolved into Grateful Fed Catering Company.
The heart of what we do has stayed pretty consistent. I still believe simple food done really well is hard to beat. We focus on familiar, approachable food that is made from scratch and made with care. A lot of what we do is rooted in Southern food, family recipes, and the kind of meals people recognize and actually want to eat.
As we have grown, we have also expanded far beyond traditional catering. Today, Grateful Fed serves weddings, businesses, universities, schools, families, and organizations throughout our area. We operate our Third Street location in Farmville, where we offer prepared meals, lunch, and weekly take-home dinners, and we have also expanded into managing the dining program at The Fuqua School (A private school here in Farmville, VA)
The business looks very different today than it did when we started with the food truck, but the philosophy really hasn’t changed.
I grew up knowing where food came from because of my dad, and knowing what hospitality looked like because of my mom. Grateful Fed is really the combination of those two things: real food, made from scratch, served in a way that brings people together.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely has not always been a smooth road, although in many ways we have been incredibly fortunate.
One of our biggest challenges has actually come from being so well received. The business grew quickly, and there were definitely times when I felt like I was flying the airplane while I was still putting the wings on it.
Fast growth sounds like a wonderful problem to have — and it is — but growth can very quickly outpace the foundation underneath a business. You have to make sure your systems, finances, processes, equipment, and infrastructure are strong enough to support where you are going, not just where you are today. That is something I have become very intentional about as we have grown.
The dollars-and-cents side has probably been one of my greatest learning curves. When you are someone who genuinely just wants to feed people and take care of them, your natural instinct is to give things away, add a little extra, or say, “We’ll just take care of it.” Unfortunately, that is not always a great business model! I have had to learn that you can have a huge heart for people and still make decisions that protect the health and sustainability of the business. If the business is not strong, eventually you cannot take care of anyone.
Staffing, thankfully, has not been one of our biggest struggles. I feel incredibly blessed by the team we have. They are phenomenal, and I truly believe our people and our culture are a huge part of what makes Grateful Fed special.
What has been challenging as we grow is protecting that culture.
We do not simply put out a big hiring call and fill positions with whoever is available. We really try to handpick the people who become part of our team. Skills can be taught, but caring about people, having a strong work ethic, understanding hospitality, and wanting to be part of something bigger are much harder to teach.
Because of that, we have probably grown our staff more slowly than we technically could have. I would rather be a little stretched while waiting for the right person than bring someone into the company who changes the culture we have worked so hard to build.
As the company gets bigger, maintaining that feeling becomes more intentional. When there were only a handful of us, culture happened naturally because everyone worked beside each other every day. As you add locations, departments, managers, and more employees, you have to actually create ways to keep everyone connected to why we do what we do.
I have learned that growth is not simply about getting bigger. It is about making sure the foundation gets stronger at the same time.
So one of the biggest lessons of this journey has been knowing when to grow, when to slow down long enough to strengthen the foundation, and how to make sure that as Grateful Fed becomes a larger company, we never lose the heart, the people, and the culture that made people fall in love with us in the first place.
As you know, we’re big fans of Grateful Fed Catering. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Grateful Fed is a scratch-made catering and food-service company based in Farmville, Virginia, and at the heart of everything we do is a very simple idea: real food, made by real people, for real life.
We specialize in approachable, made-from-scratch food that feels familiar without feeling ordinary. We are probably best known for Southern comfort food, buffets, weddings, corporate and university catering, family meals, and the kind of food that people genuinely get excited to see on the table.
What sets us apart is that we do not believe good food has to be overly complicated. We want it to taste like somebody cared about making it. We make a tremendous amount from scratch, and we put the same attention into feeding 20 people for a small gathering that we do into feeding hundreds at a wedding, university event, school, or large community function.
But I also think Grateful Fed is about more than the food.
Hospitality is a huge part of our brand. We want people to feel taken care of from the first conversation through the last plate being cleared. Sometimes we are catering one of the happiest days of someone’s life. Other times we are feeding a family after a funeral, delivering lunch to a workplace, helping a school feed its students, or making dinner easier for a parent on a Wednesday night. Those occasions may look very different, but they all matter to the person we are serving.
Our business has also grown beyond traditional catering. We have our Third Street location in Farmville, where we offer lunch, prepared foods, and take-home meals, and we now manage the dining program at Fuqua School. We serve local businesses, universities, schools, families, nonprofits, weddings, and community organizations, so our days can look very different from one another — and I think that versatility has become one of our strengths.
Brand-wise, I am probably most proud that we have grown without trying to become something we are not.
We are not trying to be overly fancy or pretentious. We want Grateful Fed to feel warm, fun, dependable, generous, and a little unexpected. We take the work seriously, but we do not take ourselves too seriously. There is personality in what we do, and I never want to lose that.
I am also incredibly proud of our team and the culture we have built. We are very intentional about who becomes part of Grateful Fed because the people representing the company are just as important as the food coming out of the kitchen. Our team truly cares about the people we serve, and I believe customers can feel that.
At the end of the day, I want people to know that Grateful Fed is still a local company with a very personal approach, even as we continue to grow. We are building something bigger, but we are doing it around the same values we started with: make good food from scratch, take care of people, be part of the community, and never forget that food has a pretty remarkable way of bringing people together.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
There are so many ways people can work with us, collaborate with us, or support Grateful Fed.
Of course, the most direct way is to let us feed you. We work with individuals, families, businesses, universities, schools, nonprofits, and community organizations for everything from small lunches and family gatherings to weddings, corporate events, large celebrations, and ongoing food-service partnerships.
We also love collaboration. Some of our favorite opportunities come from working with other local businesses, venues, organizations, farmers, and community partners to create something that benefits everyone involved. We are always open to conversations about events, partnerships, special projects, or new ways to serve our community.
Supporting us can also be as simple as ordering a meal, referring us to a friend, sharing one of our posts, leaving a review, or telling someone about a great experience you had with us. For a small business, those things make a tremendous difference.
As we continue to grow, we are also always looking for the right people to become part of our team. We are very intentional about who we bring into the Grateful Fed family, so we love meeting people who care about hospitality, food, hard work, and taking care of others.
More than anything, I think the best collaborations happen through relationships. If someone has an idea and thinks Grateful Fed might be a good fit, I always encourage them to reach out and start a conversation. Some of the best things we have done as a company started with somebody simply saying, “I have an idea.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gratefulfedcatering.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089719939111
