Oddbox fights food waste on farms and delivers delicious wonky produce for cheaper.
Business overview
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Social media | |
| Website | www.oddbox.co.uk |
| Sectors | Food & Beverage Digital Mixed B2B/B2C |
| Company number | 9638976 |
| Incorporation date | 15 Jun 2015 |
Idea
Introduction
Oddbox is London's veg box scheme exclusively focusing on wonky and surplus produce.
We fight food waste on farms by sourcing slightly imperfect but just as delicious produce for a fair price directly from farms, deliver them to customers for 30% cheaper than similar box services, and donate up to 10% of our produce to charities that fight food poverty.
We deliver our fruit and veg boxes to homes in South London, and our fruit only boxes to offices in Central London.
We partner with and directly collect from over 26 local growers paying them a fair price for their produce and offering consumers a cost-effective option to support a more sustainable food system for everyone.
We think an Oddbox delivery is a great way for people to not only feel good by eating fresh produce for an affordable price, but also an opportunity to do good by directly contributing to reducing food waste on farms and indirectly tackling food poverty.
Intended impact
We waste 10 million tonnes of food worth £17bn in the UK every year.
An estimated 20-40% of produce does not see supermarket shelves due to restrictions on size, shape, colour or because it is surplus to requirements.
Meanwhile consumers have never been more conscious about the origin of their food, and how they can shop more ethically at an affordable price.
According to one survey, 51% of people want to reduce waste - and think food waste is a global problem. They are ready to buy imperfect veg, and want to reduce plastic packaging, but 45% are put-off by the high cost of sustainable goods.
We strongly believe that our solution offers Affordable Sustainability.
We rescue fruit and vegetables that are fresh and perfectly good quality, but are either out of specification, or surplus to requirements. We offer our customers fresh, local and seasonal produce delivered to their home or office for cheaper.
We also minimise plastic and re-use or recycle our packaging.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Boxes sold till date - We have now sold over 25k boxes to thousands of happy home customers across South London and nearly 4k boxes to offices.
Monthly revenue run rate - We reached a monthly revenue run rate of c. £50,000* in March this year.
May 2016 - Started trading and supplying to the Economist magazine’s #futureoffood smoothies campaign.
Jul 2017 - Joined and part of NatWest accelerator.
Dec 2017 - Ended year with 900% y-o-y growth of home boxes (630 customers) and 2,000% y-o-y growth on office boxes (43 customers).
April – 2018 – Won Jellied Eel’s Urban food heroes award.
We have doubled our customer base in the first quarter of 2018 alone and are continuing to experience tremendous demand.
B2C - We have a waiting list of 3,000 people ready to sign up when we expand to their area.
As far as we know, we are London's first and only wonky veg box subscription and have been rated 9.6/10 by our customers on Trustpilot.
We have been featured in national newspapers and are listed as one of the best vegetable delivery boxes in the Independent and the Evening Standard, with the Evening Standard mentioning Oddbox as a great choice for the cash-strapped and eco-conscious.
*Source: Unaudited management accounts.
The founders & Team
We as co-founders have a wealth of project and team management experience in Fortune 500 companies (3M, BT, HSBC) across the globe. The overall team has expertise in finance, operations, IT, fresh produce sourcing, marketing, and customer service.
Monetisation strategy
We deliver an assortment of fruits and vegetables to homes and offices on weekly or fortnightly basis.
Including warehouse, produce, packaging, labour and delivery this year we've achieved an average 20% gross margin* (dependent on box type).
We make money by retaining customers for many weeks after we have been paid back for our ultra-low Customer acquisition cost (CAC). We recover our acquisition costs within 2 months.
People buy into our values, our mission and our 5-star customer service which is evidenced by a very high retention rate (92%) compared to other box services.
*Source: Unaudited management accounts.
Use of proceeds
We are raising funding to fuel our expansion to the rest of London through marketing, key hires, increased operational capacity and improved tech platform.
• Growth: Complemented by the awareness around food and plastic waste and our strong story, we will run geo-targeted hyper-local marketing campaigns as well as engage influencers to drive awareness and sign-ups.
• Team: Recruit into key roles to support increased volume (expert buyer, customer support, operations, marketing and tech).
• Operational Capacity: We have moved into a new, bigger warehouse and will invest in equipment to improve the efficiency of our packing operations.
• Tech: We will upgrade our platform to simplify and improve user experience and add back-end functionalities to minimise manual intervention and automate purchasing and routing.
Investor Perks
£20+
50% off your first box and a special Oddbox tote bag.
£200+
25% off for your first month* and a special Oddbox tote bag.
£500+
25% off for your first 2 months*, a special Oddbox tote bag and an Oddbox tee-shirt.
£1,000+
25% off for your first 3 months*, a special Oddbox tote bag and an Oddbox sweat shirt.
£5,000+
25% off for your first 6 months*, a special Oddbox tote bag and a visit to one of our farms.
*restricted to customers in delivery area only.
Please note that any discounts, rewards and/or offers listed by a company in its campaign are subject to the terms and conditions applied by that company. It is the company’s responsibility to honour such discounts, rewards and/or offers and Seedrs does not take any responsibility for them.
Notices
Please note, Oddbox currently has an outstanding directors loan for £25,000. This loan is interest free and will only be repaid once the company is profitable.
Market
Target market
Our typical home customers are ABC1, are aged 25-45, eco-conscious, hate food waste and want to buy good quality and ethically sourced food for less.
We currently have two ideal home customer personas:
- 30 - 45 years old female with young children.
- With a set weekly routine meaning they will almost certainly be cooking at home at the start of the week (this routine is often driven by young children).
- loves the convenience of home delivery and the variety in produce.
- 20-30 year old female:
- Vegan, vegetarian or 'flexitarian'.
- Want to eat local and seasonal fruits and vegetables but cannot afford to pay a premium.
Our typical office customer is a start-up or small enterprise with 10-250 employees. We believe they want to keep their employees healthy and provide them with healthy snacks. We also feel that they have an ethical mindset and put a strong focus on their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations and are willing to buy wonky and surplus fruits.
Characteristics of target market
The fruit and veg market was worth £13bn in 2014, and in 2017 online fruit and veg sales made up around 5.6%. Online sales of fruit and veg is forecast to grow at 54% by 2022 and we are perfectly positioned to capitalise on this growing market.
In addition, there is exponential growth in veganism and consumers looking for zero-waste, low plastic options.
There is a growing demand for sustainable food – according to recent research, 51% of consumers are open to buying less-than-perfect fruit and veg, and 80% of consumers care about the sources of food.
An Ipsos Mori poll on dietary habits has found that Britain’s vegan population increased from 150,000 to 542,000 in the space of a decade (alongside a vegetarian population of 1.14m) and, significantly for veganism’s future growth, almost half were in the 15-34 age range.
Marketing strategy
The majority of our traffic is organic or through word of mouth and customers referrals and we ensure we provide them with some great content, cooking inspirations and ideas for a more sustainable living.
We directly engage with our customer community via our weekly box letter (which explains the provenance of produce, provides tips and recipes).
We have built a product that can be endorsed by vegan / zero-waste influencers and can be promoted to their audience on social media and have seen some traffic through this channel.
Referral is a strong channel for us as 1 in 5 of our new customers come through referrals and we will be upgrading our platform to make it easier for our customers to refer.
On the B2B side, we are listed on platforms providing supplies to offices and are looking to partner with food services companies.
We are partnering with Workspace.co.uk, one of London’s largest co-working and office space providers, planning to be part of their Perks program (launch Q3 2018).
Competition strategy
In a crowded market, timing is everything. We believe we are in the right place at the right time especially with the exponential growth in veganism and zero waste.
We’ve opened a market for people to take their first step towards shopping sustainably without having to pay a premium.
We have first mover advantage being the first and only wonky veg box subscription in London.
We differentiate ourselves from other veg box services by offering a sustainable offering for 30% cheaper than similar box services.
Compared to supermarkets, our boxes have a mix of local and seasonal produce and we feel that our customers appreciate the convenience of a varied and changing mix being home delivered.
In addition, we minimise plastic packaging and re-use / recycle our boxes.
“We expect that more and more brands will offer education and leadership with clean, safe and sustainable products that distinguish them from the competition” – Source Mintel – Consumer trends in 2018.
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