INNOVATION

Lean and Bigger

Scott Harris started his DeliverLean business in 2011 as a direct-to-consumer, fresh-meal home delivery service. He made a pivot in the pandemic when the company obtained a contract from Miami-Dade County government to provide 10 million meals over 18 months to high-risk seniors. Meanwhile, DeliverLean’s GrbNGo business took off, selling sandwiches, parfaits, bento boxes and other foods wholesale to airports, hospitals and other institutional clients. In 2020, it created a niche, DeliverLeanCare, providing medically tailored meals to Humana and Care Health Plus Plan patients after they’re discharged from hospitals. “The pandemic was transformative for our business,” Harris says.

The Hollywood company posted 795% growth over three years, good enough for No. 607 on this year’s Inc. 5000. Annual revenue this year will hit $100 million. The company employs 300. Meals are made in a 65,000-sq.-ft. commissary in Hollywood.

REAL ESTATE

• GL Homes plans 650 to 700 homes in an age-restricted development on the site of what was Whitworth Farms west of Boynton Beach.
• Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a $3.5-million state grant for Port St. Lucie to build a boulevard to open 120 acres for development in Southern Grove, a 3,400-acre commercial development. Southern Grove will be home to distribution centers housing FedEx, Cheney Bros. and others.
• CP Group, the Boca Raton-based commercial real estate property owner formerly known as Crocker Partners, required all employees to be vaccinated. About two dozen people who refused were let go.

GOVERNMENT

• Broward’s public school district offered $250 bonuses to employees vaccinated against COVID-19. If all school employees get vaccinated, the cost will be nearly $7 million, paid for with federal aid money.
• In a reaction to the Surfside condo building collapse, Boca Raton is requiring buildings older than 30 years and more than three stories high to undergo a safety inspection and recertification. Broward and Miami-Dade already require inspections of buildings after 40 years. Boca is the first city in Palm Beach County to require the recertification.

ENTERTAINMENT

• The SEC alleged that Gordon Scott Venters misrepresented his entertainment company, The Movie Studio, in raising $1.2 million from investors. The CEO spent the money to fund his lifestyle and a paramour hired as a consultant, the SEC alleges.

TRANSPORTATION

• Miramar-based Spirit Airlines blamed weather and staff shortages for the large number of flight cancellations and high level of disrupted operations it experienced in August. Spirit projected the problems cost it $50 million in revenue. Softening demand blamed on rising COVID-19 concerns cost it another $80 million to $100 million in revenue.
• Burbank, Calif.-based discount airline Avelo Airlines will run between New Haven, Conn., and airports in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa and Fort Myers. It also runs routes in the western U.S.
• JetReady charter company owner Seth Bernstein agreed to pay $287,055 to settle federal civil allegations that he misappropriated Paycheck Protection Program loan money made to the Fort Lauderdale jet charter company. The company filed for bankruptcy court protection after the loan. The federal coronavirus relief program was intended to help businesses continue to pay employees and meet other specified needs. A former JetReady employee received $57,411 under a federal whistleblower provision.

EDUCATION

• Indian River State College will use a $40-million donation from an undisclosed source to build a second public charter high school near Indiantown in Martin County. The school will focus on career and technical education and dual enrollment. The college’s first charter high school is on its Stuart campus.
• The University of Florida plans to open a graduate school campus in downtown West Palm Beach in 2026.

HEALTH CARE

• Sunrise-based medical group owner Mednax laid off 671 after moving patient revenue billing and collection to outside vendor Chicago- based R1 RCM.
• A federal judge sentenced the last two of 16 vendors and Veterans Affairs Medical Center employees in Miami and West Palm Beach in a kickback and bribery case. The sentences for Hallandale Beach-based vendors to the VA ranged from home confinement to 30 months in prison and from $501,000 to $2.45 million in restitution. Of the 14 earlier cases, punishment ranged from probation to three years in prison and $2.1 million in restitution.

FINANCE

• Stuart-based Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida is acquiring the parent companies of Sarasota-based Sabal Palm Bank and Melbourne-based Florida Business Bank, adding $600 million in assets to its previous $9 billion in assets.

AGRICULTURE

• Sugar growers U.S. Sugar, Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative filed separate suits against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal lead on the Everglades replumbing project, alleging they are being shorted on water supply guaranteed as part of the deal and law that created the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000.

 

Read more in Florida Trend's November issue.
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