GrubMarket — The Future of Food Delivery
GrubMarket, founded in 2014, is “the most affordable farm-to-table food delivery service offering a variety of organic and locally-sourced food and produce.” Gaining profitability in 2017, the food delivery startup is one of the only remaining suppliers of fresh, farm-to-table produce and foods, with a strong presence on the West Coast of the United States. GrubMarket offers a platform for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer customers to benefit from, thereby disrupting the inefficient and fragmented food supply chain. Currently, less than two percent of producers sell directly to the end business/customer, and GrubMarket is working towards significantly improving these efficiencies.
GrubMarket has an extraordinary business-to-business reputation, providing services and deliveries to brands and companies as diverse as Whole Foods, Chipotle, and even WeWork through its SaaS-enabled marketplace. With an easy-to-use iOS and mobile application, alongside their revolutionary GWholesaler enterprise software platform, GrubMarket is leading its industry in eCommerce ease and efficiency. With roots as a Y-combinator startup, GrubMarket also aims to cut out the middle man in many transactions — leaving end customers with the lowest prices possible, and farmers with the highest earned revenue possible. Currently, GrubMarket serves as the largest supplier of mushrooms and Hawaiian produce in Northern California.
GrubMarket’s mission is to make fresh and healthy food accessible to everyone, and to that end, GrubMarket has always held the highest standards for the foods delivered to customers. E-commerce and food delivery is one of the most challenging areas of the massive agriculture industry — which in 2017 and 2018 were valued as 8 and 9 trillion dollar markets respectively.
In 2018, GrubMarket acquired the So Cal Farm Network, which served as the leading purchaser and provider of farm identified, seasonal produce in the Southern California region. The acquisition further enhanced and reinforced GrubMarket’s existing produce supply chain capabilities. Additionally, GrubMarket’s most recent acquisition came in mid-January, when they announced their acquisition of Chasin Foods, a wholesale distributor of produce, dairy, meats, seafood, and provisions.
GrubMarket has five core values that they’ve focused on since their inception: 1) Keeping products fresh and seasonal, 2) Providing customers full transparency and knowledge of where product origination, 3) Supporting local farmers and food makers, 4) Maintain product pricing so that they’re less expensive when compared to traditional grocery stores (via improving the efficiency of the food supply chain), and 5) Maximizing convenience via delivery directly to the office or home. To further continue its journey toward these goals, GrubMarket has worked tirelessly over the past five years to acquire more knowledge and companies to strengthen its core assets.
Currently, DG717 uses the services of GrubMarket, and Digital Garage is currently co-leading with WI Harper Group to invest and support GrubMarket’s global expansion. In addition, Digital Garage is planning on supporting Japan expansion through Tabelog, a site which almost everyone in Japan is using and has 2.1 billion page views per month. Despite United States and global food industry growing ever larger, many other industries have continued to surpass and outpace it. However, there are projections that the market will continue to evolve, with estimates that food and beverage retail will grow past twenty billion dollars by the end of 2019.
