INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
It a story that any urban millennial can (and will) complain about
You are looking for a non-caffeinated beverage, so you walk into a juice shop only to be shocked at the $13 price point for a couple of
apricots and kale mixed in a blender.
Yes, there is an intentional premium signaling going on, but there is also a much deeper challenge
that goes all the way back to the ground where that kale came from
Farms are throwing away produce that doesn''t meet the aesthetic standards of grocery stores, and that means perfectly edible and delicious
vegetables are completely lost
Some studies show that a majority of all food weight is lost before it even leaves the farm
Yet, there are no easy ways to sell those loose leaves of romain — at least, not yet.
San Francisco-based Full Harvest is building a B2B
marketplace that connects large-scale farms with companies like retail juice franchises, who seek excess produce in order to make their
The marketplace, which TechCrunch has discussed before, has closed an $8.5m series A round led by Spark Capital, with agriculture-focused
venture shop Cultivian Sandbox Ventures joining the round.
Full Harvest is the brainchild of Christine Moseley, who worked for more than a
decade in the logistics and food industries, including a stint at retail juice chain Organic Avenue
As she was thinking about potential startups, she learned about the incredible food waste that takes place every day in America.
While
spending time at a farm &knee-deep in romaine,& she saw farmers throwing away lettuce that would have been perfect for her former employer
&They were leaving 75% behind on the ground, and after all of those water resources were spent,& Moseley said
For farmers, ''they are really dictated by what those big grocery stores are demanding, because consumers are becoming pickier and pickier,
so the supermarkets are getting more picky,& she continued.
Full Harvest then is designed to bridge the gap, connecting farms to businesses
that don''t need the same aesthetics
The startup focuses on vegetable farms greater than 1000 acres and fruit farms larger than 100 acres and then connects them to customers
The company has developed a set of quality standards to make buying and selling more fluid, and it is focused on ''the foundational
large-volume items that these food and beverage companies buy,& Moseley said
Today, the company brokers 40 items.
Moseley says that buyers and sellers both need better pricing
For farmers, many of whom are struggling with their own economics, a marketplace allowing them to get some value for produce they are
currently throwing away could be a critical source of incremental revenue
For buyers, lower prices could mean cheaper product prices, increasing profits and driving sales to consumers.
Excess produce is the focus
Imperfect Produce and Hungry Harvest are focused on the B2C market of delivering excess produce straight to consumers
In comparison, Full Harvest doesn''t work with consumers at all, and instead focuses on large commercial buyers.
A series A venture round is
by no means uncommon today, but it is rarer for solo founders, rarer still for female founders, and even rarer in the agricultural space
Moseley said that she was &pleasantly surprised& that being a solo female founder in a space like agriculture wasn''t the focus of her
investors, and that they instead focused on &execution and market opportunity.& At the start, &It a lot to handle on your own,& Moseley
said, but &now we are scaling, and it gotten very manageable.
Spark John Melas-Kyriazi and Cultivian Dan Phillips will join Full Harvest
In addition to the two funds, Jenny Fleiss, Jon Scherr, and Adam Zeplain joined the round along with former seed investor Wireframe
