Patrick Mateer worked in food distribution as a college student, where he observed the amount of extra food farmers had available to sell. “At the same time there were a lot of people that needed food, and it’s hard to make it to the farmers market once a week,” Mateer recalls. Beyond convenience, seasonality limits availability and affects pricing.

His business, Seal the Seasons, works with local farms to freeze fresh food and sell it year-round to local grocers and schools. “We are assisting the farmers, brooding their marketing, and giving them more opportunities to move their produce,” Mateer explains.

My Successes: 

“My SCORE mentor really helped with a lot of the internal operating documents and the internal legal jargon,” Mateer says. “They really set us on the right path for success with the management side of things.”

Seal the Seasons is a certified B Corp and plans to scale from the East Coast across the country. 

How SCORE Helped: 

“I had never taken a business class before or done any sort of formal business training,” Mateer says. He looked to SCORE to talk through problems like working with vendors and analyzing business performance. Mateer attended a few local financial workshops offered by SCORE, and met with volunteer mentors Alan Fenwich and John Wyman on a monthly basis. If Mateer was struggling with a major issue between those meetings, his mentors were just a phone call away. 

Seal the Seasons