On this episode of the Bourbon Friday Show we had the opportunity to talk with Andrew Glantz, Founder and CEO of GiftAMeal, about their social sharing app that helps provide meals to people in need in the St. Louis and Chicago areas.

Social Sharing for Social Good

Let’s face it—people love to document and share their everyday activities on social media. It’s nearly impossible to avoid seeing a photo of something someone ate that day on your feed.

But what if those photos could be used for something good?

That’s exactly what Glantz wondered several years ago when sitting in a great, albeit empty, restaurant for lunch one day. Not long after, GiftAMeal was founded.

GiftAMeal is an app where the user can take a photo at a partner restaurant and then GiftAMeal helps provide a meal to someone in need in the community.

How it works is that restaurants pay a monthly fee to be included on the app— which is where the revenue comes from. Then, once the customer takes a photo at the restaurant and that photo is verified, GiftAMeal makes a donation to a food bank and they distribute food to local food pantries. Additionally, if customers choose to post the photo to social media, a second meal is donated.

When asked what incentivizes restaurants to join the app, whether for marketing purposes or for giving back to the community, Glantz insists that it’s a little bit of both.

“You can think of it as bringing corporate social responsibility to independent restaurants, franchise restaurants, and the big chains to bring the customers in and to involve them,” says Glantz.

It also makes it easy for customers to find and support restaurants who take being socially conscious seriously. GiftAMeal currently operates in St. Louis and Chicago, so anyone interested in checking it out and supporting restaurants in those areas should go to https://www.giftameal.com/ to learn more and download the app.

Bourbon Innovation

Join Bourbon Friday every Friday at 4:00pm (CT) on Zoom.[/caption]As always, the Bourbon Friday team does their best to choose a fitting drink for the occasion.

The bourbon for this week is Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel. Russell’s Reserve is a Wild Turkey product named after master distillers, Jimmy and Eddie Russell. A few years ago, the Russell’s started a program called Wild Turkey Gives Back. That year, Wild Turkey delivered over 4,500 turkeys to families in their hometown of Lawrenceburg, KY, as well as donated 50,000 Thanksgiving meals to Share Our Strength—a charity that helps feed families in need across the country.