Building Trust Without Looking Like You're Selling "Second-Tier Food"

On the Levels Podcast, Guillermo Martinez, COO and co-founder of Buen Provecho, discussed one of their biggest early challenges: convincing people that surplus food isn't the same as low-quality food. In a market where consumers associate discounts with inferior products, building trust from day one was critical to their success.

For a startup selling food that stores didn't manage to sell during regular hours, the perception problem was real. Would customers think they're buying food that's about to go bad? Would they assume it's second-rate products? These questions shaped how Buen Provecho approached everything from their brand positioning to their WhatsApp group curation.

The Stigma Problem

When Buen Provecho launched in 2021, they knew they weren't just solving a logistics problem—they were fighting against decades of consumer conditioning that equates discounts with compromised quality. This was especially true in Latin America, where food safety concerns can be more pronounced than in other markets.

"The first time, biggest struggle was avoiding the stigmatism or the... expectation of it may be second quality or second tier food," Guillermo explained.

The challenge wasn't just theoretical. If customers downloaded the app expecting deeply discounted food and opened their first purchase to find something that looked or tasted off, they'd not only churn—they'd tell everyone they knew to avoid the app. In the age of social media, one bad experience could sink a nascent marketplace before it even got started.

The team needed to crack this perception problem before scaling. No amount of marketing or growth hacking would work if the fundamental value proposition was tainted by quality concerns in customers' minds.

Mission-Driven Trust Building

Buen Provecho's solution was to lean heavily into their mission. Rather than positioning themselves as just another discount app, they framed the experience around environmental impact and community participation.

"Obviously we worked around it by building trust mission. It's really important, right? When you get people to build a community, like we're trying to do things differently, they already, you know, trust you more. They don't think, okay, they're just trying to get a quick buck and just screw us over," Guillermo said.

This mission-first approach accomplished several things at once. It attracted early adopters who cared about food waste and sustainability—people more likely to give the product a chance and forgive early imperfections. It created a shared identity among users who saw themselves as part of a movement rather than just bargain hunters. And perhaps most importantly, it reframed the discount: customers weren't buying cheap food, they were buying perfectly good food that would otherwise be wasted.

The psychology here is crucial. When you tell someone "this is 45% off because it's about to go bad," they're skeptical. When you tell them "this is 45% off because stores can't sell all their fresh inventory and we're preventing waste," the same discount becomes virtuous.

Curation as Quality Signal

Beyond messaging, Buen Provecho invested heavily in curation during their WhatsApp validation phase. They weren't just connecting any store with any product—they were thoughtfully selecting what to feature and how to present it.

"We already just took the pictures, right? We did a really good job in curation," Guillermo noted about their early WhatsApp days.

This attention to presentation sent an important signal: we care about what you're getting. The team personally photographed products, wrote descriptions, and managed the listings. It was wildly inefficient and wouldn't scale, but it established quality expectations from day one.

When users saw attractive photos of fresh bakery items or prepared meals, it didn't look like they were shopping through a discount bin. It looked like a curated marketplace that happened to have great deals. That perception—even if the underlying product was identical—made all the difference.

The WhatsApp Group Advantage

The WhatsApp group itself became a trust-building tool. Unlike launching with an anonymous app where users couldn't see each other, the WhatsApp group created transparency and community from the start.

When nearly 1,000 people were in a group chat together, receiving the same offers and having the same experiences, it reduced individual risk. If something was wrong with the food, others would speak up immediately. The community itself became a quality control mechanism.

New members could see the history of successful transactions, observe how quickly items sold out (a scarcity signal that suggested high quality), and feel they were joining something established rather than taking a chance on an unknown entity.

Lessons for Trust-Dependent Marketplaces

Buen Provecho's approach offers valuable lessons for any marketplace where trust is essential:

• Lead with mission when your value proposition could be misunderstood
• Invest in curation and presentation, even when it doesn't scale
• Build community visibility so users can see they're not alone in taking a chance
• Reframe discounts as ethical choices rather than compromises
• Prioritize quality experiences for early users who will become vocal advocates

The trust built during those early WhatsApp days created a foundation that scaled with the company. As they've grown to over 150,000 users, that initial reputation for quality has carried forward, making each new market entry easier.

Key Points

• One of Buen Provecho's biggest early challenges was overcoming the stigma that surplus food equals low quality
• They built trust by positioning themselves as a mission-driven community fighting food waste rather than a discount app
• Careful curation and high-quality product photography helped establish quality expectations from day one
• The WhatsApp group format created transparency and community validation that reduced individual risk
• Mission-first framing reframed discounts as ethical consumption rather than settling for inferior products
• Early trust-building, even when inefficient, created a foundation that scaled with the company

Listen to the full conversation with Guillermo Martinez to learn more about how Buen Provecho built a trusted marketplace in Latin America's food waste sector.