About 40 percent of food in the US is wasted each day. Each year, the average American family spends $2,200 on wasted food. One company, FreshRealm, is looking to change this one food shipment at a time. And now, they have a lot more money to do it.
Last week, FreshRealm announced it raised $10 million from Impermanence, LLC, to further commercialize its patent-pending transportation “Vessel”. The new food distribution technology is a temperature-controlled, multi-layered, and reusable box designed to keep fruits and veggies fresh for much longer than conventional shipping methods. And, they do it without the use of dry ice or toxic gel ice packs. The technology also has cloud-based software that will connect customers and businesses, designed to create a more efficient transportation.
“Historically, national delivery of fresh food has been impossible,” the FreshRealm website says. “With the invention of the the Vessel, FreshRealm can get fresh food to people faster, fresher, more conveniently and to more places than ever before in history. If it has a mailbox, fresh food can be delivered there.”
Using names you know–FedEx, UPS, among others–FreshRealm is designed as both a B2B and B2C company. If an individual wants to use FreshRealm but doesn’t want to order a whole box of produce, the company is prepped for a “Co-Drop” delivery method, which pools together orders from the same area, thereby maximizing the efficiency of delivery.
A subsidiary of and 50 percent owned by Calavo Growers, a fresh-produce company known for its avocados, FreshRealm was created just one year ago. But despite its young name, the old legacy of Calavo–from the facilities to the large network of distributors used over the last 10 years–FreshRealm aims to be a “game-changer” in the food industry.
FreshRealm has yet to launch, but if you’re curious to learn more, you can read more about them here.
Sponsored
Sponsored post: The innovator’s dilemma: why agbioscience innovation must focus on the farmer first