Strategy, story, and digital craft for the brands moving foodservice forward.
Sixteen quick questions. Four dimensions. Claude reads your answers and returns your Brand Archetype, dimension scores, and a personalized growth map you can act on this week.
Built for the consultants, manufacturer reps, designers, dealers, and operators who sell themselves — not just their firm. Not where you think you stand. Where you actually stand.
Strategy, creative, production, and digital. Each a full practice on its own, stronger when they're running in sync on the same account.
Positioning, research, and the messaging systems that keep your team and your customers on the same page.
Explore strategy →Brand identity, packaging, print, signage, and environmental work that reflects the quality of what you make.
Explore creative →Video, documentary, podcast, conference, animation, and photography. We capture expertise and turn it into content worth watching.
Explore production →Custom sites, custom apps, SEO that lands in AI search, and AI training that changes how your team works.
Explore digital →Ignite & Connect™ is our methodology for turning expert knowledge into a story universe. Each asset pulls its weight for years, not weeks. Video-first. Story-driven. Relentlessly on brand.
A short list. The real one is longer. A few recent projects that show how strategy, creative, and story come together when the agency actually knows the industry.
Foodservice / Podcast
Three seasons and counting. Brand, set design, website, and ongoing episode production for the foodservice consultant community.
View case study →
Higher Ed / Concept Branding
Eight unique dining concept identities with complete branding and signage coordination, delivered with CMH Architects, Aramark, and Foodesign Associates.
View case study →
Manufacturing / Web
Complete web overhaul plus digital tools that armed Ice-O-Matic's technical support team with the right documentation at the right time.
View case study →
CPG / Packaging
Cohesive brand system plus reimagined beer label and packaging portfolio. The Systema Natura series took home GABF Gold.
View case study →Charlotte HQ, plus crew wherever our clients are. We travel constantly, and boots hit the ground when you need them.
It means we don't have to learn your industry on your dime. We've been working with foodservice manufacturers, design consultants, associations, and operators since 2013. We know FCSI from MAFSI from SHFM from ACF. We know what a CAD-RFP-spec workflow looks like. We've sat through enough product demos and conference floor walks to know what actually moves a buyer.
It's our proprietary system for turning expert knowledge into a content ecosystem. We capture expertise through video conversations (Ignite), transform it into narrative-driven anchor content (Transform), and build interconnected story universes across channels (Connect). Built specifically for how B2B buyers actually research and decide today.
Yes, and it's a major growth area for us. We build custom applications for universities (member portals, dining apps), associations (event apps, member directories), brands (sales tools, configurators), and architecture/consulting firms (project portals, RFP tools). Lean, well-designed, and built to scale.
2D and 3D animation, motion graphics, animated explainers, and character work. We launched it because more and more of our clients need motion content (for product launches, training, social, presentations) and the lift-and-shift to outside vendors was killing the storytelling. Now it lives in-house.
HQ is at 933 Louise Ave. Suite 101 in Charlotte, NC 28204. We have additional offices in Chicago, Phoenix, Charleston, and Ft. Lauderdale. Most of our team is hybrid or remote, and we travel constantly for shoots, conferences, and client engagements.
Project work (a brand refresh, video series, a website, an app) ranges from a few weeks to a few months. Retainers, where we function as an extension of your marketing team, run for years. Take the Brand Ignition Assessment to get a quick read on what FUZE could realistically do for you.
A proprietary system for capturing expertise on camera, transforming it into anchor content, and connecting every piece into a narrative ecosystem your audience can navigate.
Today's foodservice and B2B buyers spend most of their decision journey researching independently. They use 10+ channels. They want answers, fast, in formats that respect their time. The traditional marketing funnel is dead. Welcome to the era of the narrative ecosystem.
The cornerstone of the system. We sit down with your subject matter experts and have real conversations on camera, not scripted, not rehearsed, just structured to draw out the stories, examples, and frameworks already in their heads.
We turn raw conversations into anchor pieces structured around classic storytelling principles. Heroes, challenges, transformations. The foundation pieces that ignite the rest of your content ecosystem.
We expand anchor content into interconnected narrative universes. Audiences can enter at any point and find pathways to the next piece. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Phase 1: Discovery & Strategy. We map your expertise, identify the narrative threads, and design the architecture of your story universe.
Phase 2: Content Development. We capture the conversations, build the anchor content, and produce the derivative pieces that connect everything together.
Phase 3: Distribution & Engagement. Multi-channel rollout. Consistent narrative threads. Real engagement, not just impressions.
Phase 4: Analysis & Optimization. Measure what's working, evolve what isn't, and let the story arc grow with the response.
The diagnostic that comes before the strategy. Sixteen quick questions across four dimensions. Claude reads your answers, reveals your Brand Archetype, and builds a personalized growth map you can act on this week. Not where you think your brand stands. Where it actually stands.
Claude reads your full pattern and names it. Maverick, Architect, Conductor, Ecosystemer — one archetype that captures how you show up and where your edge is hiding.
A score on each of the four dimensions that actually drive brand gravity in this industry. Plus a rarity signal so you know how you stack up against the rest of the workshop.
A personalized growth map written by an AI trained on the Ignite & Connect™ methodology. Not generic advice. Three moves you can make before Friday, prioritized by leverage.
Every completed assessment generates a Brand Card like the one below. Archetype up top, dimension scores in a radar chart, a rarity tag, and a short priority line for what to do next. Downloadable, shareable, post-able.
The thing peers already come to you for. What you know that nobody else in the room does. The part of your knowledge that's earned, specific, and hard to copy.
The through-line running under everything you say and ship. Whether you've named what you stand for and whether it's clear enough that a stranger could repeat it back.
Where and how you actually show up. LinkedIn, events, committees, speaking, writing, podcast guesting. Not every channel — the deliberate mix, run consistently.
What's keeping you from showing up more. Time, clarity, confidence, priorities, permission. Claude names the specific thing in your way — and hands you the move to get past it.
Sixteen questions, four dimensions, one archetype, three next moves. What we run live at FCSI EPiC and other workshops. Free, always on.
Launch Spark Scan ↗Deeper question set, richer analysis, and a longer personalized brief. Built for foodservice pros who are ready to treat their personal brand like the asset it is.
Unlock the Blueprint →Thousands of projects across foodservice, higher ed, manufacturing, and beyond. The work tells the story.
Full brand design for the e360 platform.
8 unique food concept identities with full branding and signage.
Logo, brand voice, photography, and web design.
Conference theme and branding for the national event.
Brand development, set design, web, ongoing production.
Brand development and collateral system.
Full brand book with logo usage and voice guidelines.
Logo, brand, and packaging design.
Label design and brand voice for gourmet PB spread.
Industry print ads tailored to editorial focus.
Custom booth design for industry trade shows.
POS, signage, and full collateral rebrand from Technibilt.
Pop-up banners and trade show materials.
Seasonal newsletter design for nonprofit fundraising.
Flyers, sell sheets, and brochures for the sales team.
Full page ad in FCSI Magazine.
Cohesive brand guidelines and full label refresh.
Packaging design for GABF Gold Medal winning series.
Complete overhaul reflecting their industry-leading brand.
Web overhaul plus service tech digital tools.
Complete refresh with focus on documentation organization.
Strategic content reorganization with product locator integration.
Complete overhaul with focus on user engagement and flow.
Complete rebuild reflecting new brand aesthetic.
Complete web build for industrial manufacturer.
Complete brand web presence.
Season 3 episode of the FCSI podcast.
Season 3 teaser for FCSI podcast.
Conference recap and highlight reel.
Industrial product video for foundry application.
Product video for industrial buyers.
Product demonstration video.
Project case video documenting Paradise rebuild.
Healthcare foodservice case video.
Corporate brand overview video.
Product launch video for organic puree line.
Refrigerated LTL feature video.
Grow technology product video.
Brewery lifestyle and product shots.
Studio product shots for marketing.
Corporate portraits and environmental work.
Brand book with voice and usage guidelines.
Industry publication sponsored content articles.
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What we're watching, reading, shooting, and arguing about. Monthly-ish. Written by the Fuzers, not a content mill.
Strategy
Campaigns end. Audiences keep moving. The methodology we use now treats every asset as a node in a larger, ongoing story universe — and it's changed what our clients ask us for.
Production
Heat, sparks, noise, and a product demo you couldn't stage if you tried. Clint walks through the prep that let us shoot Weiler safely — and why the one-take takes happened on purpose.
AI & Digital
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are the new search results for a growing share of your buyers. A short primer on Answer Engine Optimization and how it's different from ranking on Google.
Industry
When a single residential hall holds a Brazilian churrascaria and a soul food counter and a pasta bar, you don't build eight brands. You build a system that makes eight brands feel like Alabama.
Strategy
A short rant about discovery meetings, talking too much, and why the first question we ask clients is always the same — and why that's worked for twenty-four years.
Industry
We spent two days at a foodservice conference asking people one question: what actually makes a trade show worth the cost? The answers were shorter than expected and more honest.
Inside FUZE
How we went from a workshop idea to a shippable personal brand assessment app in about 36 hours of focused building, running live at FCSI EPiC. The honest stack breakdown.
Obsessing over brands since 2002. Foodservice specifically since 2013. Mostly hybrid, always traveling, weirdly close-knit. When we partner with you, these are the people you get.
Positioning, research, and the messaging systems that keep your team and your customers on the same page. The diagnostic that comes before the campaign.
The sentence, the story, the words your team uses on a call. Built to be remembered and repeated.
Focus groups, expert interviews, category research. The hard questions asked before the money gets spent.
Integrated plans across print, digital, video, and events. Every asset tied to an outcome you can measure.
Launches, rebrands, new product rollouts. The plan that gets you to the audience, and the audience to the decision.
Where you're at, where they're at, where the gap is worth running into.
Free 16-question personal brand diagnostic. Claude-powered. Four dimensions. Your archetype in ~7 minutes.
Branding a podcast from the positioning out. Methodology, audience, voice, then name and visual.
Eight dining concept identities, each strategically positioned for a different corner of the student population.
Fifteen tech interviews before a single pixel. A website built around service techs, not buyers.
Brand identity, packaging, print, signage, and environmental design that reflects the quality of what you actually do. Not a few degrees behind it.
Logos, identity systems, naming, voice, and standards. Complete visual architectures that scale.
Food, beverage, and consumer packaging that earns shelf. GABF Gold medal work in the portfolio.
Brochures, sell sheets, trade publications. The collateral your sales team will actually use.
Booth design, environmental graphics, sales enablement at NAFEM, FCSI, and beyond.
Dining concept identities, wayfinding, digital menu boards, environmental graphics.
Association magazines, annual reports, long-form editorial. Typography as a point of view.
40+ SKU modular label system. Systema Natura took Gold at the Great American Beer Festival.
Eight concept identities, a wayfinding system, digital menu boards, and an environmental graphic program.
Full identity refresh and a sales collateral system for the North American arm of a global retail and foodservice equipment maker.
Video, documentary, podcast, animation, conference, and photography. We capture expertise on camera and turn it into content you'll actually be proud of.
Customer stories, executive interviews, launch films. Cinematic quality, every time.
Long-form, story-led production for brands with something real to say.
2D, 3D, motion graphics, animated explainers, character work. Our newest practice.
Full-service podcast from name and brand through three seasons. Track record with FCSI On Tap.
Live event capture, stage content, keynote films. Production partner Julius Nemovi leads from San Diego.
Product, food, corporate, lifestyle, and event. Studio and on-location across the Southeast.
Title sequences, kinetic type, explainer animation. Makes the flat stuff move.
3D and immersive production for foodservice. Brenden Wright's studio out of Ft. Lauderdale.
Full-service podcast brand and production. Set design through episode delivery.
Cinematic brand film shot inside an active foundry. Heat, sparks, and a product story worth watching.
Documentary-style brand film about KTG's temporary kitchen deployment after the Camp Fire.
Custom sites, custom applications, SEO that lands in AI search results, and AI training that actually changes how your team works. Built by the practice, run by the partner.
Custom-coded sites, headless builds, CMS rollouts. Runs through Microhound, Xavier's practice.
Member portals, event apps, campus dining tools, internal systems for architecture and consulting firms.
Search engine optimization for Google. Answer engine optimization for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.
Editorial calendars, platform strategy, and the channel-by-channel execution behind them.
Custom prompt libraries, tool training for Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude. Built by Dave Hodges.
4–6 session workshop series that puts AI tooling into the hands of your sales and marketing teams.
A full-site rebuild designed around service technicians, not just buyers. Research-led IA.
Editorial-style project archive for a leading foodservice consultancy. Custom CMS and image pipeline.
Our own app. Vite + React + Express, powered by Claude. Workshop-tested at FCSI EPiC 2026.