Team
Alison Mountford
Founder & CEO
Alison Mountford is the Founder and CEO of Ends+Stems, a meal planning service designed to reduce household food waste and stop the effects of climate change. Alison turned 15 years of professional chef and entrepreneurial experience into a solution to help eliminate both weeknight dinner stress and food waste in one clever step.
Alison is a passionate problem solver and approachable leader with a dual vision; to get households cooking again and to save the planet. Before building Ends+Stems, Alison founded Square Meals in 2005, one of San Francisco’s first prepared meal delivery companies. Square Meals was first to market and helped define the trend of chef-prepared meals delivered to your door.
For 10 years, Alison grew Square Meals into a successful cafe and catering company and had the opportunity to cook for celebrities, politicians, and many influential companies. After selling Square meals, Alison had a short stint as Procurement Director for a food tech company, solidifying her passion for reducing food waste.
Alison has been named a Rubicon Waste Fit Champion, was a finalist for the Spoon Tech Startup Showcase, and has appeared on many podcasts and radio shows, and works as a food waste consultant.
Sofi Pechner
Photographer
Sofi Pechner Photography
Sofi Pechner was born and raised in the Bay Area and the beautiful environment of the West Coast has always fueled her creativity behind the camera and in the kitchen. Before pursing her passion in food photography, Sofi worked in tech in San Francisco. She then went on to travel around the world discovering local cuisines and capturing beautiful destinations and cultures. This extensive travel, alongside enrolling in a natural chef program, inspired Sofi to pursue a career in food photography. She loves telling stories through her photos and inspiring people to get in the kitchen and cook, and most importantly eat.
Sofi holds a B.S. in Sustainable Food Consumption and Community Health from UC Berkeley, as well as a Natural Chef Certification from Bauman College in Berkeley, California.
Gretchen DeVault
Website Designer
Tiny Blue Sky
Gretchen is co-founder and lead web designer and strategist for Tiny Blue Sky. She has 15+ years of web design and branding experience and an established record of producing award-winning work that drives business.
She opened the doors of DeVault Design (now Tiny Blue Sky) in 2005 and has worked with over a hundred businesses and nonprofit organizations. She is passionate about helping businesses and nonprofits grow through their websites and branding.
Gretchen is also a business expert and shares her love of all things entrepreneurship as co-host of Lean the F*ck Out a weekly podcast for female entrepreneurs.
She is also a singer/songwriter and guitarist for indie pop band The Icicles (along with her husband Zane) and shoegazer band Voluptuous Panic. Her music has been licensed in commercials for Motorola and Target, as well as several independent films.
Zane DeVault
Website Developer
Tiny Blue Sky
Zane is our co-founder and lead developer for Tiny Blue Sky. In addition to overseeing the success of the business, Zane is also a skilled web developer with a background in brand management and digital marketing. He’s a fervent believer in clean code, and he’s on a mission to make content management systems more intuitive and accessible. He works with WordPress, HTML / CSS / jQuery, PHP / MySQL. When he's not working, he can be found home brewing, drumming for the band the Icicles or playing with his twin kiddos.
