Oddbox — for fighting food waste from the doorstep
Oddbox is on a mission to fight food waste from our doorsteps by rescuing surplus fresh produce direct from farms and delivering boxes filled with fruit and veg every week to homes across the UK.
The company’s subscription boxes include a custom note every week and a supply of curly cucumbers, red-ish peppers and ‘dented’ aubergines, an Oddbox is full of wonky joy and recipe possibilities.
Founded by Emilie Vanpoperinghe and Deepak Ravindran in 2016, the couple entered the world of fresh produce with a lot of Intelligent Naivety. Without the baggage of industry experience, the couple wasn't afraid to ask the questions that weren’t being asked like ‘why does the UK have such a problem with food waste?’.
“We were not from the industry, so we didn’t know anything about fresh produce. We thought that the growers would be really keen and happy to work with us and actually, we realised it wasn’t the case,” Vanpoperinghe told the Journey Further podcast. “Initially, I suppose we didn't have any credentials and people in the industry don’t like to talk about food waste.”
Undeterred, the pair dug deeper into the issue.
They found that the EU scrapped tight regulations on fruit and veg over ten years ago, but UK supermarkets and their standardised supply chains hadn't moved with this shift.
To this day, 20-40% of all produce grown doesn't meet these outdated supermarket specifications. The regulation means only straight cucumbers and apples of a specific diameter are accepted to supermarket shelves, so food waste remains the norm. Over 4.5 million tonnes of perfectly edible fruit and veg go without being eaten every year in the UK (and that doesn’t even account for the wasted water, labour and land used to produce that wasted food).
“A shocking 20-40% of produce in the UK is wasted before it even leaves the farms meaning a lot of unnecessary waste for the planet, a raw-deal for producers and a whole wonky world of missed opportunities for people like us to eat”
Taking its beliefs into everything it does, Oddbox act with conviction in its fight against food waste. The company partners with charities such as the Felix project to act on food poverty in the UK and redistribute what would be waste food to those who need it.
During the pandemic, Oddbox helped the suffering farming industry by taking all the fruit and veg that would usually have gone to the hospitality sector and instead redistributed the produce to people’s homes.
Oddbox’s thriving community reflects a real and human brand on a mission, encouraging people from all walks of life to join its fight. The more people who join Oddbox, the more significant its impact on reducing food waste and the associated carbon emissions.
Despite all the challenges of 2020, Oddbox had a great year. The business benefitted from the rising demand for doorstep delivery, it surpassed one million boxes sold for the year, and a new round of investment raised £3m to expand. To cap the year off, it also became a B Corp.
We’re excited to see what’s in store in 2021 for this ambitious challenger.
Ellie Simmons is a Strategist at eatbigfish.
