Healthy-meal delivery startup plates 500 jobs in Howard County

We’re used to seeing food delivery startups expand to new geographic areas. This week, one company’s plans in Howard County makes it a central part of their operations.
Freshly is planning to open a distribution center in Savage, near the junction of Route 1 and the Patunxet Freeway. The 171,000-square-foot center is slated to open in the fall.
The New York-based company, which is pursuing a 50-state strategy after a whopping $21 million Series B, looks to emphasize health with meals that don’t have gluten or processed sugars, and prioritize proteins. Somewhat similar to D.C.-based Galley Foods, the food comes fully prepared and just needs to be heated in a microwave or stove. (Over in D.C., Technical.ly’s Tajha Chappellet-Lanier worried about Galley’s ability to scale in her recent realLIST post. I guess this is what a scaled version of Galley would look like.) Cooking and prep will take place at the Savage site, which will be a hub for Freshly’s East Coast operations.
“After searching the region we determined that Howard County would be an ideal location to expand our services to the east coast,” Freshly CEO Michael Wystrach said in a statement. “After seeing all the food processing and distribution resources already located here, it made sense to me that we would want to be where we can get the freshest foods for our clients.”
Freshly will spend $8 million to renovate the facility. The Maryland Department of Commerce issued a $1 million loan for the project.