September 2019
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HOT CONCEPTS<br />
TRACTOR<br />
The quick-serve concept is making healthy food fast and accessible<br />
STORY BY DANIELLE SCHALK<br />
As busy parents operating in Vancouver’s<br />
corporate world, Meghan Clarke and her<br />
husband/business partner Steve found it<br />
hard to feed their family quick healthy food.<br />
“Often, we would grab stuff to go or<br />
order out and [the options were] not super<br />
healthy,” she explains. The couple saw<br />
this as a gap in the market — one which<br />
would eventually become the inspiration<br />
behind the 2013 launch of Tractor Everyday<br />
Healthy Foods.<br />
The family-owned business is built on<br />
a mission of improving access to healthy<br />
food, with a focus on fresh, nutritious and<br />
high-quality offerings.<br />
“We left the corporate world and had<br />
about 14 months where we planned and got<br />
[the brand] off the ground,” says Clarke.<br />
“We’ve always been interested in food and<br />
health and we’d been watching the market<br />
for a long time…We knew veggies, lean<br />
meats and proteins were big categories people<br />
were interested in and we knew speed<br />
and convenience were huge, so we tried to<br />
lump it all together and roll something out<br />
that ticked a lot of those boxes.”<br />
Following the launch, the Tractor team<br />
focused on establishing a presence in<br />
Vancouver, moving into more businessheavy<br />
areas, including its second location,<br />
which opened in Vancouver’s financial district<br />
in 2015 and remains the brand’s topperforming<br />
restaurant.<br />
Locations feature a modern design<br />
aesthetic with open-concept kitchens<br />
embedded right in the main dining room,<br />
as well as dining spaces accented in natural<br />
wood and stone. Guests order at a cafeteriastyle<br />
counter, which showcases the brand’s<br />
menu offerings, including bowls, soups and<br />
stews, sandwiches and sides — all made<br />
fresh in house. Breakfast is offered at select<br />
locations and some also feature full espresso<br />
bars, which serve 49th Parallel coffee<br />
and espresso.<br />
Tractor has marked several growth milestones<br />
over the last year. In June 2018, the<br />
brand launched its first location outside of<br />
Vancouver in downtown Toronto. Last fall<br />
marked the opening of the brand’s head<br />
office, located just a block away from the<br />
original Tractor restaurant. And, in June,<br />
the brand launched a new pick-up-only<br />
concept — Tractor Digital — in Vancouver.<br />
“Our brand is moving more into the<br />
digital world. We feel like convenience and<br />
speed are so important to people — particularly<br />
in the downtown sectors of cities,”<br />
says Clarke. “We’ve built our own proprietary<br />
app that we’re using for our new<br />
Tractor-Digital brand. Building out [the<br />
tech aspect] of our business will probably<br />
be the way of the future.”<br />
Tractor Digital is an order-ahead concept<br />
offering the menu items Tractor has<br />
built its reputation on. The majority of the<br />
Quick Facts<br />
ESTABLISHED: 2013 in Vancouver’s<br />
Kitsilano neighbourhood<br />
AVERAGE SIZE: 2,000 sq. ft.<br />
AVERAGE CHECK: $14<br />
EXPANSION PLANS: The brand aims to<br />
expand its presence in Toronto and Vancouver,<br />
while looking for opportunities to enter other<br />
Canadian cities and expand to the U.S.<br />
NATURAL SETTING The Marine Building<br />
location is accented in natural wood<br />
and stone; (top) founders Steve and<br />
Meghan Clarke<br />
12 FOODSERVICE AND HOSPITALITY SEPTEMBER <strong>2019</strong> FOODSERVICEANDHOSPITALITY.COM
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