As a full-service studio, Beyond Capture has always provided its talent, crew, and contractors with food. It’s an industry standard and has come to be expected on-set. But not all studios provide local restaurant meals hand-picked by the talent themselves that’s delivered fresh and hot, on-time for lunch break, and, most importantly, in COVID-safe way.

The Beyond Capture team used a different catering service that closed its doors because of the pandemic. “Before Foodee, it wasn’t easy to find a service that catered individual lunches instead of family-style meals,” Bradley Tyler, Production Coordinator, said. “Additionally, orders from other food couriers were often delivered with mistakes, and the separated tip versus meal receipts were problematic on the accounting side.”

“With Foodee, we can share individual guest links with talent and external contractors,” Maeve Russell, Production Manager at Beyond Capture Studios told us. “It has streamlined the process of taking food orders for our cast/crew.”

“Plus, we appreciate that each meal is labelled with the name and food order,” Bradley added. “The labels help ensure no cross-contamination between those with specific dietary restrictions”, that is, if multiple people ordered the same meal that day. They also appreciated the ability to mark specific dietary restrictions and requirements right into their Foodee profiles for faster ordering.

With COVID food and health safety concerns off of the team’s plate, Maeve and Bradley can focus on what’s important to them: their time.

As production managers, it’s their job to ensure that everything runs smoothly and on-schedule. It’s no wonder that their most important criteria for food catering was punctuality. “Generally speaking,” Maeve explained, “we hire union talent for our shoots and are, therefore, subject to union rules and regulations. As such, we are only allowed to shoot in four-hour blocks. Our lunch must fit within those blocks and cannot be late or too early.”

Lastly, but importantly to Foodee and its eaters, is, of course, the delicious local food. The Beyond Capture crew loves it when Vancouver’s local burger joint, Burgoo, pops up on the diner portal. They love how many different southern-style comfort food options Burgoo has, ensuring that there is something for everyone.

“Disco Cheetah on Davie Street is a personal favourite of the entire crew,” Maeve added. “When the timing works out with our shoot days, we always request it!” For them, the employee-specific Foodee accounts meant that their team members could individually order their meals, while the agency could mix-and-match many menu items for talent to choose from when it was delivered. “The rotation of different restaurants ensures our meals never get boring,” Bradley told us.