Local Connections

Vie strives to connect our subscribers with their local grocery stores in a way that harbors trust and builds consistent revenue for the stores. This enhanced connection will help store managers to better address the needs of its customers and decrease waste by targeting sale products (by working with Vie Meal Planners) in the attempt to move specific items through the store more quickly.

Our Focus

Vie’s focus is on engaging the community and building a strong social media presence that connects our subscribers with the grocery stores that they shop at most. Vie encourages our subscribers to share ideas, photos of tasty home-cooked meals and their savings from shopping trips.

Education

A primary goal at Vie is to educate.  By creating meal plans based on weekly grocery store sales, we are able to deliver a product to our subscribers that makes their lives easier and saves them money. By using Vie, our subscribers learn how to consolidate their shopping to one store, to “shop the sales” and the basic cooking techniques to prepare up to seven original recipes each week.

Philanthropy

In the spirit of giving back, Vie’s Full Share Program works closely with members of our community that are less privileged. Meal Plans for All provides one free subscription to a family in need for each full-priced subscription sold. We also offer support to community-building events, run cooking classes for busy parents, and teach children about the importance of healthy eating.

Our Team

The Vie team is made up of Charlottesville locals who care about our community, love to cook, and have a fierce desire to bridge the gap between the shopper and the grocery store.

Our meal planners are chefs, home cooks and food enthusiasts.  They are moms & dads, entrepreneurs, teachers, athletes and local food advocates.  In essence, they represent the local community and offer diverse perspectives on food choices, cuisines and cooking styles.  

History

Vie launched its Pilot Program in November 2016 and launched its Members-Only Meal Planning Service in February 2017.

Vie is the culmination of Founder Lynsie Steele’s efforts to make healthy eating easy and affordable.  DinnerDivide, Lynsie’s food blog, began as a project four years ago to raise awareness about healthy family eating.  Its aim was (and still is) to teach individuals and families how to eat better while saving money at the grocery store.

Having lived in France for a year, Lynsie returned to the U.S. with a new set of ideals that focused on simple meal preparations based on seasonal ingredients, timeless techniques and family connection.

Since its inception, DinnerDivide has lead Lynsie in many new directions.  Most recently, Lynsie worked as a Meal Planner for RelayFoods, now Door-to-Door Organics.  Through her work with Relay, Lynsie learned how to tap into what grocery shoppers are looking for: inexpensive meals that are one pot, pan or dish, simple cooking skills that cover a wide range of cuisines, kid-friendly options that are also healthy and fun, and the desire to shop local without “breaking the bank.”

About Lynsie

As the mother of six children total (2 step-kids and 4 small boys), Lynsie has firsthand experience cooking in real life–at the end of a long day when little mouths are hungry and the chaos of the kitchen can be overwhelming.  Through her work over the last 10 years as a mom and a chef, Lynsie has created strategies in the kitchen that make her life easier that in turn always help to get a healthy dinner on the table that everyone will eat.

Wrap Up

Vie is invaluable to both local shoppers and local grocery stores.  We are an unbiased resource that our subscribers trust.  We encourage social media engagement, word of mouth marketing and deep relationships with the stores we represent.  Our hope is that by growing our subscription base, we can expand the company to a national level, see revenue of each store increase and change the cooking & eating habits of every family to become healthier and more satisfying.

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