Earth911 Podcast: Farmstead’s Pradeep Elankumaran on Building Sustainable Food Delivery

Pradeep Elankumaran, cofounder and CEO of Farmstead, explains how the company set out to build a sustainable grocery delivery company focused on eliminating food waste. Where retail grocery stores report wastage of between 30% and 40% of the food they stock, Farmstead uses local batching of deliveries to cut its waste to less than 5%. The Farmstead site provides a wide range of foods, not just organic foods — and they are delivered for free at prices that on the whole appear to be very competitive with retail grocers. Shoppers make their choices and sign up for delivery times to allow drivers to collect many orders and reduce driving between deliveries. Another interesting feature of the Farmstead service is an “eat this first” guide sent with their receipt to help customers consume perishables before they spoil. The service is currently available in the San Francisco Bay Area and offers pickup and recycling of cold packs and delivery packaging.

Food waste and the lack of locally grown foods in many areas are two of the biggest contributors to climate change. Americans waste more than a third of the produce and foods they buy, leading to additional methane emissions in landfills and the need to grow and ship more food. Because most foods are shipped long distances, their carbon footprints can be huge, primarily due to the use of fossil fuels in shipping. Learn more about Farmstead at farmsteadapp.com