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‘Free-From’ Munching

Local nutritionist offers healthier snacks on new app.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When nutrition consultant Stacy Goldberg first developed the idea for Savorfull back in 2011, an e-commerce platform that offers healthy, “freefrom” snacks, she was receiving more and more calls from clients seeking foods “free from” ingredients such as gluten or dairy. Stacy “I wanted to Goldberg reach more people,” Goldberg, 44, of West Bloomfield, said. “When you work as a nutritionist, you only see a certain number of people per day, and it was not so scalable.” She was working with children and families and even professional athletes, but her vision was to expand further.

To help more people, Goldberg decided to focus on the free-from market. “I knew there was this boom in the food space where I was seeing more gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut-free coming into the market,” she recalled, “but I was also getting a number of calls from clients who were looking to be more free-from, whether they had food allergies or wanted to be vegan or plant-based or had specific dietary needs.”

At the time, she was moving away from private practice and into an entrepreneurial accelerator program to learn how to build a scalable business where she could still provide nutrition education information, but also be able to connect people to

COURTESY OF SAVORFULL

healthier food choices. It was the early stages of Savorfull, which has recently expanded to include a mobile app for free-from snack purchasing and home or business delivery.

“I found that what was happening, even in my practice, is that people were really overwhelmed by food choices,” Goldberg said. She originally would take people into grocery stores to teach them how to read labels and pick foods right for their needs, and later incorporated that same philosophy into Savorfull, where clients and customers can search for foods based on a variety of free-from choices. The website also accommodates searches for certified kosher food.

Goldberg has five people on her Savorfull team, and the business is housed under the Detroit-based Rock Family of Companies. When users sign up for its services, they receive free-from food choices that are personally vetted by Goldberg and her staff. Shipping is free for purchases made in the U.S., aside from Hawaii and Alaska, and customers can choose curated snack boxes or create their own assortments from a variety of choices.

More than 40 vendors make up Savorfull’s roster. Goldberg traveled across the country to discover these brands, attending various food shows and exhibitions. There’s even a focus on Michigan-made goods, including the likes of B’Bites, Cooper Street and Germack, among others. “We love local,” she said. “We really work hard to find unique products that are nutritionally dense, free from anything artificial and clean eating-based.”

UNIQUE ITEMS

Savorfull’s selection includes bigger brands such as Beanfields and Honey Stinger, but also smaller vendors from other states that aren’t often found in big box stores. “We try to find really cool, interesting brands that maybe you’ve never heard of,” Goldberg said, “emerging brands and local brands from across the country.”

She believes a healthy lifestyle is one of moderation, so anything from chips to cookies can be found on the Savorfull app and website. “We don’t have any strict guidelines as far as grams of sodium or grams of sugar,” Goldberg explained, “because everyone is living a different lifestyle and not everyone is ready to go from potato chips to kale chips.”

When Goldberg was revamping the Savorfull website earlier this year, she knew she also wanted to incorporate a mobile app for easier online shopping. Launching in 2020 was always the goal, but it was sheer coincidence that the timing coincided with COVID-19.

In a climate where services like curbside and food delivery are steadily becoming the norm, Goldberg, who serves on Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit’s Women’s Philanthropy board and Jewish Working Women’s Network board, believes the timing couldn’t have been more aligned.

“One of the interesting things that people are realizing in COVID is that it really is easy to shop online,” she explained. “People who were hesitant before to buy snacks on an app are realizing how much time they’ll save, how much money they’ll save and the convenience of it.”

She believes more and more people will start to lean into the online food shopping space, especially when it comes to free-from snacks. “It’s been exciting to see that growth,” Goldberg said, “and I think it’s here to stay.”

here’s to

The 25th Annual Birmingham Bloomfield Cultural Arts Award honorees were announced recently. Among them are Sue Marx, 2020 Special Lifetime Achievement Award; and Jason Polan, 2020 Special Posthumous Award. The jury was impressed by Marx, of Birmingham; many of her documentaries, some of them pro bono, tell the story of our region, including the Detroit Zoo, Children’s Hospital, the DIA, a Cranbrook series, the Purple Rose Theater, the People Mover, the Detroit Boxing Gym, and most impressively Sue Marx the Math Corps, a collaboration with Wayne State University to assist underserved youth to learn math that has been shown all over the country. The jury felt very strongly that Polan, who grew up in Franklin and who passed away this year at the age of 37, deserved to be recognized for the incredible mark he had in Michigan where he left murals in Ann Arbor and mentored local artists from Birmingham and those in the Jason Polan Detroit art scene, but also for his national and international impact on the arts, with collaborations with Uniqlo, Warby Parker, Marvel Comics and Nike, his illustrations in children’s and adult books, his efforts and ultimately a book to draw Every Person in New York, and his daily cartoons in the New York Times, as he “drew to help the world see.” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently announced appointments to the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Among them is Anessa Kramer of Bloomfield Hills, a partner and board member at Honigman LLP. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Fund, the Roeper School and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. Kramer is appointed for a term expiring Sept. 1, 2023. The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs serves to encourage, develop and facilitate an enriched environment of creative and cultural activity in Michigan.

The Michigan Municipal League has honored Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) as one of the League’s 2020 Legislators of the Year. Following his service as the youngest city council person in the city of Southfield’s history, Moss was immediately installed as the ranking Democrat on the Local Government Committee upon his election to the Michigan House in 2014. He has a long record of passionately defending local control, speaking out against efforts to preempt local units of government and pushing for restoring funding to communities.

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