Imperfect Foods: Grocery Delivery Service to Reduce Food Waste

Eco-friendly grocery delivery service that dramatically reduces food waste – Attracted $72 million in investment

Imperfect Foods mission is to reduce food waste and build a better food system for everyone.

Imperfect Foods-Grocery Delivery Service to Reduce Food Waste

Improving the food supply system by reducing waste and securing additional profits for producers by selling food ingredients that cannot be sold normally due to external defects unrelated to quality.

From agricultural products to dairy, meat and seafood, offering up to 30% lower prices, aiming to cut 200 million pounds of food waste by 2020.

Imperfect Foods

Imperfect Foods provides grocery delivery service rescuing and redistributing food across multiple grocery categories – including produce, shelf-stable goods, dairy, meat and seafood. Imperfect Foods has remained hyper focused on eliminating food waste and supporting farmers and producers when it comes to excess and imperfect products. The company now rescues and redistributes food across multiple grocery categories.

General Information

Headquarters : San Francisco, CA
Founders : Ben Simon, Benjamin Chesler, Ron Clark
Categories : Consumer, Delivery Service, E-Commerce, Food & Beverage, Food Delivery, Grocery
Founded : 2015
Contact : wes@imperfectfoods.com

Funding

Investors: Insight Partners, Norwest Venture Partners
Funding Rounds (9) - $137.1M
May 20, 2020 Series C / $72M
Jun 7, 2019 Debt Financing / $18M
May 17, 2018 Series B / $30M
Jan 7, 2018 Convertible Note / $5M
May 5, 2017 Series A / $9M
May 5, 2017 Venture Round / $1K
Nov 25, 2016 Convertible Note / $75K
Oct 23, 2016 Seed Round / $2.3M
Feb 1, 2016 Seed Round / $685K

1. Reason for attention

1.3 billion tons, 1/3 of global food consumption, are discarded without being sold due to low commodity value, In the United States, 20% of agricultural products are discarded simply because they are 'ugly agricultural products' with poor commercial properties.

Korea also generates 5 million tons of food waste annually, of which 70% is generated during distribution and storage.

‘Food Refurb’, which re-utilizes products that cannot be placed on the product shelf due to an appearance problem, not a quality problem, aims to protect the environment and promote healthy and reasonable. It is attracting attention in terms of consumption, and Imperfect Foods is a representative company of this ‘food refurbish’ trend.

2. Current service status

Since its establishment in 2015, it has been supporting and protecting the environment by purchasing food that is discarded due to appearance problems directly from producers of agricultural and livestock products.

You can subscribe for a minimum of $16/week for regular products and $24/week for organic products. If you change or add a product you want every week, the product will be delivered to your home.

Depending on the product, it is offered at a discount of up to 30% compared to the market groceries. Recently, to protect the environment, a campaign to recollect the boxes used for shipping is also underway.

Projected to prevent the disposal of approximately 200 million pounds of agricultural and fishery products by 2020.

The $72 million investment will be used to expand new fulfillment facilities and capacity to respond to the surge in demand caused by the coronavirus.

3. Future Prospects

Interest in refurbished products, which had been focused on home appliances in the past, is expanding not only to agricultural and fishery products, but also to various products such as clothing and daily necessities.

It is expected that the market will continue to expand according to the purchasing trend of consumers who want to improve their awareness of refurb and to consume rationally.