On the front burner
Justin Massa’s (BA ’01) Food Genius tracks the latest trends in food and dining.
By TANNER WALTERS
the problem in a unique way: by focusing on the meal, not the restaurant. “We were trying to come up with a Netflix for food. The idea
I
was that we would look at restaurants, look at menus, understand the attributes of their items, and then help customers find a dish, instead of a restaurant,” he says. “You can’t eat a restaurant; you have to eat a dish.” Food Genius got its start as a mobile app for Android and iP-
hone cell phones. Users (who could download it for free) entered their favorite dishes, and received a list of other local options that were similar. However, Massa and co-founders Eric Cooper, Eli Rosenberg, and Benjamin Stanley quickly realized that they wanted to take Food Genius in a different direction. “We realized that the business of what we were doing was in
the data itself, and built a product around the data.” The new Food Genius Reports, released in January of this year,
offers food industry professionals restaurant menu data and analysis. The software, designed to provide a visual and intuitive display of data (most of which is provided to Food Genius by Chicago company GrubHub), has been described as offering an “incredible analysis of current ingredient-specific data.” “We pay attention to the entire world of food all the time.
That gives us the ability to very quickly provide perspective and context when somebody comes up with a new idea, but more im- portantly it gives us the ability to sort the signal from the noise,” Massa claims. “We don’t see it as our job to tell you what the trend is, we see it as our job to give you the set of tools to understand which trends matter to your business.” Massa, who graduated with an undergraduate degree in polit-
ical science and later earned his MA in teaching at National-Louis University, never imagined himself as a CEO. “When I look back on it, I’ve always started things. I do some-
thing and get frustrated that it doesn’t work, and I start some- thing else—that’s my personality. While I was at Loyola, I started a radio show on WLUW and a campus group.”
FOOD GENIUS AT WORK
Food Genius creates reports that detail the primary ingredients of dishes on restaurant menus. The data helps food industry professionals develop ideas and recognize trends. This sample report lists the types of cheese in pizzas served at restaurants in Illinois.
t’s an age-old question, but it never fails to stump hungry patrons: “What’s for dinner?” When Justin Massa (BA ’01) created Food Genius
in 2011, he sought to help customers answer that same question. It’s simple for anyone with an Internet connec-
tion to find lists of local restaurants by their type: Italian, Chinese, bar food. But Massa approached
Mozzarella Parmesan Cheddar Ricotta Provolone Feta Goat Romano Blue
53%
20% 20%
13% 11% 9% 9% 8% 6%
SOURCE: FOOD GENIUS
Massa is quick to credit Loyola for preparing him to be a
business leader. “Loyola instilled in me an intellectual curiosity,” he says, a
curiosity he claims is necessary for all entrepreneurs. He also cites his time on the debate team as invaluable. “I learned how to do quality research, extract the most important information, and effectively communicate that information.” Concerning the future of Food Genius, Massa has an open
mind. “The next six months for us are really all about proving Food
Genius as a product and building a customer base for it. Once we do that, there are a couple of different paths we may take as to what we do next.”
SPRING 2013
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