![]() The United Kingdom alone sends 90,000 tons of produce to landfills annually but this food is never recorded as waste since it is rejected before it hits the supermarket shelves. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization around 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted or lost every single year globally. When they returned home the learned a lot more about the loss and waste in the grocery industry. The two wondered why the tomatoes tasted so much better but looked stranger than their typical produce selection in London. They were eating delicious tomatoes that were oddly shaped. When Emilie and Deepak, they discovered the waste in the grocery industry when they were vacationing in Portugal. Launched in 2016, the story of OddBox has a fascinating origin. Having a founding team with such impressive and complementary backgrounds means OddBox’s future is in good hands. The company is the brainchild of founders Emilie Vanpoperinghe, an expert in finance and operations with over 15 years experience working in both the private and charity sectors in France, India, and the UK, and Deepak Ravindran, an operations and technology consultant with skills in business strategy and operations technology who has worked for several multinational companies. Each order comes with free shipping, is fully customizable, and can be canceled at any time. The home box comes in numerous sizes, ranging in boxes that are perfect for individuals and couples to large families and everything in between, while the work box option is ideal for workplaces with about 10 employees. OddBox offers two types of boxes depending on the needs of the customer: the home box and the work box. This purpose-driven company is convenient, generous, and sustainable, as all of the produce it purchases is rescued from farms and would otherwise have been wasted, answering the call for efforts to reduce food waste. OddBox, like its namesake implies, provides a unique offering: the company purchases imperfect fruits and vegetables directly from local farms and markets for a fair price, delivers them to customers for 30% cheaper than similar box services, and donates up to 10% of its produce to charities dedicated to fighting food poverty. While the company’s service may seem somewhat niche, it’s clear from the response of OddBox’s supporters that there’s a larger demand for flawed produce than one might think. The company, a Graduate of the London Founder Institute, initially set out to raise £350,000 with their crowdfunding campaign, but ultimately raised more £520,000. ![]() OddBox, “London's first wonky veg box subscription service”, recently reached and exceeded its crowdfunding target in record time. ![]()
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