Farm to Revolving Door: Shake-Ups Rock the Online Grocery World
photo via Quinciple
Forget about it just being a Fresh Direct-world: From Farmigo to Nextdoorganics to Rustic Roots to Barklyn—specializing in small batch, organic dog food—the farm-to-door delivery arena has exploded in recent years. And two of New York’s leading online grocers, Farm to People (which partners with local producers such as Brooklyn Delhi, Ft. Greene Farms, Ruby Bay Seafood and Better Off Spread), and Quinciple (which sells weekly subscription boxes of curated, seasonal ingredients, along with recipes and advice on how to use them), hope to stand out even further from the considerable pack by joining forces this fall, resulting in value-added services offered at each company.
“For now we are remaining two separate websites, but with lots of special benefits,” explained Farm to People co-founder, Michael Robinov. “For example, we’re excited to be adding a fresh farmers’ market component to our site in the coming months as well as opportunities for exclusives with small batch makers and sustainable farmers. Quinciple is thrilled to be gearing up to offer box customization, curated add-ons, new pick up locations and partnerships as well as expanded delivery areas.”
“Both brands have very loyal customer bases and it’s exciting for us to now be able to reward them with more variety, convenience and delicious local foods,” Robinov added.
And the pair should probably expect to see even more traffic due to the unexpected implosion of industry heavyweight, Good Eggs, which, surprisingly, announced last Wednesday would close down its operations in Brooklyn, New Orleans, and Los Angeles effective immediately. In a post on their NYC site, CEO Rob Spiro indicated the primary issue was too much growth, too fast; making Farm to People/Quinciple’s carefully calculated merger seem cannier than ever.
“We’ve been in the process of merging for some time now and the Good Eggs news came as a complete shock,” commented Robinov. “We really have the same missions and we want to see these farmers and producers thrive. It is more important now than ever to support the local food movement and we hope that we can fill the logistics need for getting these exceptional products from farms and makers to people!”
