Memphis has long been a hub for innovators. We live in a time when it’s essential to up our game, whether it’s for better health, a better community, or a better way of life and living. Memphis Magazine has been honoring those people and organizations who have looked not just to the next level but who reach for the stars. Our 2024 Innovation Awards — the 12th annual event — has found those thinkers and doers who have already made the city a better place to live. We had plenty of candidates to choose from, but these five people representing four organizations are working to make tomorrow an amazing time. This year, we recognize:
BreAnna Boyd is founder and CEO of FeedWells, a team of culinary, nutrition, and health experts who focus on providing quality food to students. There’s too much food insecurity in our community, and Boyd’s project is going a long way to fix the problem.
Dr. Evan S. Glazer at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is collaborating with Regional One Health to develop fresh approaches to patient care. It’s not just the patients who benefit — healthcare professionals and institutions all find improvement.
Eric Mathews, CEO of Start Co., is an innovator’s innovator. He works with people who have ideas and are in the early stages of developing tech, business, and economic enterprises. If someone’s ready to make the big leap, Mathews is there to help it happen.
Susan Cooper and Megan Williams with Regional One are innovating around the cost of healthcare for the uninsured. In developing a program that boosts both health and social needs, they are responding in a meaningful way to the needs of many Shelby County residents.
Here, we profile BreAnna Boyd. Other profiles of Innovation Award winners will follow throughout the month.
Please attend the 2025 Innovation Awards Breakfast:
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 | 7:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. | 750 Cherry Rd, Memphis, TN 38117
photograph by jon w. sparks
BreAnna Boyd
The CEO of FeedWells has big plans to improve the public school lunch program.
White tablecloths, yogurt parfaits, rose petal garnishes — these have become the school lunchroom experience for 15,000 students across Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Not only are all these meals scratch-made, farm-to-table, high-quality, and nutritious, but they’re also free — the work of FeedWells, a Memphis-based food service company founded by BreAnna Boyd.
Registered with the state to administer the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and Summer Food Service Program, FeedWells has partnered with 15 charter schools and four private schools to serve meals to students in Memphis. The company also works with schools in Nashville, New Orleans, and Mississippi, with plans to expand into Florida.
Founded in 2019 to address food insecurity, FeedWells gained momentum during the 2020 pandemic when the need to provide nutrition services for children reached an all-time high, with students unable to attend school, where underserved children may get their only meal for a day. During that period, they fed more than 120,000 Memphis-Shelby County Schools students, in partnership with the YMCA of Memphis & the Mid-South, Southwest Tennessee Community College, the city of Memphis, and FedEx Custom Critical.
“I want to have a say in mandating and changing legislation, where every student eats free across the country. Every kid should be able to get a meal when they’re in school.” — BreAnna Boyd
“That was probably the toughest thing we ever could have done, but we made it work,” Boyd says. “And once they returned back to classes, we wanted to continue that initiative.”
Growing up in Whitehaven, Boyd didn’t enjoy Memphis school cafeterias: “I remember getting my plate and leaving.” She admits not understanding nutrition. As a teenager, she turned to fitness to cope with depression after her dad’s passing. “I was working out,” she says, “but I didn’t know how to pair nutrition with it.”
She studied nutrition and started 15md Wellness, a meal-prep delivery service for clients including the Memphis Grizzlies and Memphis Redbirds. But she wanted to educate young students to understand nutrition, and the best way to do that, Boyd figured, was by cultivating a memorable experience for students. That included the tableclothes, garnishes, salad bars, and more, along with something rare in many school cafeterias: good customer service.
“We train team members to treat students like they are your customer walking into a restaurant,” Boyd says. “Every school gets the same meal, the same quality, the same white tablecloth.”
At its start, FeedWells targeted four areas: food quality, taste, appearance, and supply. Boyd addressed these needs by partnering with area farms, creating recipes that won’t change, and ensuring the food doesn’t just taste good but looks good, too.
So the kids have parsley on their food, sometimes rose petals. They can pick out eye-catching, colorful popsicles with vegetables blended in them. They eat from a salad bar with high-quality ingredients, from raisins to strawberries. “We have a sauce station at our schools where kids can just flavor it up, and it’s going to also encourage them to eat their meal,” Boyd says.
FeedWells encourages student input. For Memphis students, that means a lot of requests for hot wings. “So we give them different flavors,” Boyd says. “We may do a signature seasoning that we created in-house with our executive chef, and we allow the kids to pick their favorites.”
When schools partner with FeedWells, Boyd says, the student participation in the meal programs increased from 30 percent to 90 percent. “We have kids that are asking for two plates, three plates,” Boyd says. “Even the teachers eat free and they take the food home. It’s become a family-oriented environment because everybody looks forward to being in the cafeteria.”
Plus, when students eat filling and nutritious meals, their social, physical, and emotional well-being improve. What’s more, they perform better academically, simply because they aren’t hungry and don’t have to worry about where their next meal will come from.
FeedWells also offers snacks throughout the day, and before- and after-care meals.
Every other month, the company hosts themed days to celebrate international cuisine. For these days, the students will choose a country to learn about through food. For a recent Mexico-themed day, FeedWells brought in a mariachi band, had a piñata, and served Mexican cuisine. “It’s like they’re entering a different country when they walk into the cafeteria,” Boyd says.
Her long-term goal is to continue to fight food insecurity. “I want to have a say in mandating and changing legislation, where every student eats free across the country,” Boyd says. “Every kid should be able to get a meal when they’re in school.” — Abigail Morici
