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Farm-to-Table Delivery Service GrubMarket Raises $25M in New Funding

GrubMarket, a kind of on-demand farmer’s market that will deliver goods right to your door, announced it has raised $25 million in an oversubscribed C1 round (hat tip: TechCrunch). The round — originally meant to be $15 million — was led by WI Harper Group and Digital Garage, with participation from Evolv Ventures, Arancia International Inc., University Growth Fund, and CentreGold Capital. Existing investors also participated: ACE & Company, GGV Capital, Fusion Fund, Bascom Ventures. This latest round brings GrubMarket’s total funding to $89.1 million.

The company sources food directly from farmers then sells it online to individual consumers, businesses, and as wholesale to other businesses. Right now, the company counts WeWork and Whole Foods among its clients.

To use GrubMarket, one need only sign up for an account, fill a shopping cart, and pick a delivery date. You can also opt to pick your order up at a farmer’s market or in some cases directly from the seller. There’s no subscription required to use the site, which offers free delivery on orders over $39.99 and a $5.99 fee for smaller orders.

It’s not a bad deal for sellers, either, who can set up a virtual storefront in minutes on the GrubMarket site and get access to a potentially larger audience through GrubMarket’s customer base.

But as far as that customer base goes, GrubMarket will have to work hard to compete, as it has a growing amount of company in the farm-to-table-delivery space. Farmbox Direct ships its organic produce nationwide. Good Eggs raised a $50 million Series C round in May of 2018, and in Europe, and in the UK, Farmdrop closed a £10 million round to deliver its predominately organic and local goods to consumers.

GrubMarket, who is inching towards an IPO, told TechCrunch it plans to use the $25 million funding for new technology and more acquisitions. It’s done a couple of the latter, including Southern California’s Chasin Foods in January and FarmBox SF in 2016.

For now, the San Francisco-based company only serves counties in the Bay Area: Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, Alameda County, San Francisco County, Contra Costa, and Marin County.

Seattle Shake Shack Goes Super Local with Crowd Cow Beef

Seattle has been salivating over our forthcoming Shake Shack for months. The Emerald City may have the iconic Dick’s Burgers, mountains of local produce, and more oysters than you can shake a stick at, but something about the Danny Meyer-led chain’s cheeseburgers, crinkle fries, and ice cream concretes has created a rabid fan base for the soon-to-be restaurant.

The new Shake Shack will open in Seattle’s Westlake neighborhood, smack dab in the middle of the sprawling Amazon campus, and will come with a few locally-inspired menu items. Chief among them is the Montlake Double Cut, which Seattle Met revealed today would be a double cheeseburger made with local beef sourced from Crowd Cow, topped with Just Jack cheese from Seattle institution Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, caramelized onions, and a mustard-mayo sauce on a locally made Macrina bakery bun.

Shake Shack has a history of teaming up with local institutions to add regional-specific dishes to the menus of its new outposts. For example, for its Austin, Texas location, the company created a burger topped with jalapeno-cheese sausage from Texas barbecue spot Kreuz Market. However, this Seattle creation marks the first time the chain has ever made a change to its custom-blended beef patties.

Honestly, we can’t wait to try the Crowd Cow burgers. (I’m a vegetarian, and I’m still excited about the partnership.) Crowd Cow is an online service that lets consumers buy craft beef (and chicken, and pork, and fish) from local farmers, then delivers it directly to their door. The Seattle-based startup recently raised $8 million to expand their network of farmers and improve their supply chain.

This partnership was a savvy move on Shake Shake’s part. By partnering with a marketplace like Crowd Cow, they can feature locally raised beef from small farms without ever worrying about hiccups in their supply. If a certain farm can’t provide meat one week, Crowd Cow can always search its marketplace to source some more.

By developing a burger that’s not only regionally-inspired but also made of regionally-sourced beef, the New York-based chain can attract customers who might typically avoid chain restaurants. “Shake Shack was looking to do something very particular to Seattle,” Crowd Cow co-founder Ethan Lowrey told me over the phone.

Not only is their beef local, it’s also much higher quality than you’ll see in a store or restaurant — even the fancy ones. The cows in Crowd Cow’s marketplace are raised for steak, which means their meat is a superior grade. “Our secret weapon is our ground beef,” Lowrey said. “Even if you compare it with the nicest ground beef you buy in a store, it’s just night and day.”

By sourcing beef from Crowd Cow, Shake Shack can capitalize on recent demands for transparent meat sourcing. As my colleague Chris Albrecht wrote a few months ago:

According to The Power of Meat report, conventional meat sales were flat in 2017, while meat with special production (natural, organic, etc.) and claims about ethical animal treatment saw “dollar gains of 4.8 percent and volume growth of 5.1 percent.” 

As far as we can tell, this partnership is the first time that Crowd Cow has sold their meat to a high-volume restaurant. Let’s hope the growing startup can keep up with the demand of Shake Shack-crazed Seattleites.

Beyond beef, Shake Shack will also add a few local creations to its menu of concretes (basically, extra-thick milkshakes): one with seasonal pie from A La Mode Pies, one with Theo’s dark chocolate, and another with brittle made from Sea Wolf croissants.

There’s no official word on the opening day for the Westlake Shack Shack, though it’s rumored to be sometime in the next few weeks. If you get to stop in and order the Montlake Double Cut, be sure to tweet us @TheSpoonTech and tell us how you liked it.

Farmshelf Brings Indoor Mini-Farms to Sustainable Chain Oath Pizza

Earlier today Farmshelf CEO Andrew Shearer announced on Linkedin that the new Upper West Side location of Oath Pizza, set to open this Thursday, will feature one of their indoor growing units.

Farmshelf builds turnkey hydroponic mini-farms, about the size of a bookshelf, for use in restaurants and hotels. Their systems are equipped with sensors which can automatically manage the growing process, so all users have to do is plug in the device and harvest.

By growing produce 15 feet from the kitchen instead of, say, 1,500 miles, Farmshelf units can dramatically reduce food packaging, waste, and carbon footprint. It’s also is a pretty cool marketing gimmick for restaurants which put emphasis on local ingredients.

Oath Pizza is one such restaurant. The fast-casual pizza chain, which started in Nantucket, specializes in local and ethically sourced ingredients. So it’s a natural fit for them to install a grow unit which will let them take the leap from “farm to table” to “restaurant to table.”

According to their website, Farmshelf units can currently support over 50 leafy greens, herbs, and edible flowers. Judging from the Linkedin photo, the only thing the indoor farms will be growing at Oath Pizza is basil. However, their menu also features oregano and spinach, so maybe those will make an appearance at some point down the road.

This could be just the beginning of the Farmshelf-Oath Pizza partnership. Last month, the pizza chain partnered with Aramark to bring their ethical ‘za to new, larger venues, such as college campuses, sports arenas, and office buildings. Oath currently has locations in Boston, D.C., and New York, and this partnership opens them for some pretty massive expansion. It would be a smart idea to bring Farmshelf along with them; their mini-farms provide very visual publicity. Not to mention a great Instagram opportunity.

The Upper West Side outpost will join Farmshelf’s current location lineup, which includes several restaurants in Washington, D.C., as well as The Great Northern Food Hall in New York’s Grand Central Station. Maybe soon college students and baseball fans will be able to see their basil growing right next to their Crazy Caprese pizza — and then Instagram it.

Online Grocery Farmdrop Raises £10M to Expand Local Food Delivery

When I lived in London last year I used to get really excited when I saw a pale pink van pull up outside my flat. Because inside that van was a selection of local, (mostly) organic vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and bread from ethical grocery delivery service  Farmdrop.

Yesterday Farmdrop raised £10M ($13.3M) in a Series B round from investors including the founder of Skype, according to the Guardian. This brings their total funding to £17M ($22.6M). Founded in 2014 by Ben Pugh, an ex-broker, the London-based company plans to use its funds to expand to the north of England and double their delivery area. They currently deliver to London, Bristol, and Bath.

According to their website, 80% of Farmdrop’s produce comes from within 100 miles of their delivery radius. Their meat is all free-range, and at least 70% of the price of each head of lettuce or grass-fed burger goes back to the producer. According to Pugh, the average retailer only pays farmers at most 50% of the final price. And if that weren’t enough, Farmdrop’s vans are also electric!

In addition to fruit, vegetables, and meat, Farmdrop offers more variety than, say, an Imperfect Produce or Good Eggs. The 2,000 products on offer also include organic home cleaning products, baby food, pantry staples, beer and wine, and bakery items.

By eliminating wholesalers and retailers from the supply chain, Farmsdrop is able to offer high-quality food at a price that is pretty competitive with big retailers — and it hasn’t been sitting on a shelf for days on end.

Farmdrop doesn’t require a subscription or a minimum spend (though they do add £4 to any order under £30). Customers can choose a 1-hour delivery window for a small fee (it’s free if their order is over £80), or else select a 6-hour time slot. The day before delivery, the driver will send an updated 60-minute window for their arrival.

Clearly Farmdrop doesn’t have the instant gratification or convenience of a 2-hour Amazon/Whole Foods/Albertsons/etc grocery delivery. (The fastest turnaround they have is next-day delivery, which is available for orders before noon.) However, their recent raise signifies that there are enough people that don’t mind dealing with a little extra inconvenience in exchange for ethically sourced, high-quality produce.

For those who don’t want to/don’t have time to trek to the farmers market but still want to buy local foods, Farmdrop, like Good Eggs and Farmstead in the U.S., is a good option. Though it seems they have updated their van aesthetics.