Hungry harvest competitors1/25/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() "In the past six years we've seen food waste and ugly produce morph into a mainstream conversation as people have become aware of how much waste they have in their own homes," says Lutz. Restaurants and food banks have long worked with farms in a similar capacity, but Hungry Harvest and its competitors reflect consumers’ growing interest in engaging with and shaping the food supply chain. The company, which was founded in 2014, focuses on creating a market for the excess of irregular or blemished produce that farms can’t sell to grocery stores and may leave to rot or simply dispose of. "We always expected this kind of demand to come in, but we thought it would be spread out over the next five years," says Evan Lutz, the CEO and founder of produce delivery service Hungry Harvest. The pandemic has also spurred the growth of meal kits and grocery delivery services, which became a lucrative intersection between the tech and food industries over the past decade. After all, this year saw a run on produce seeds for pandemic victory gardens, and a historic rise in community-supported agriculture (CSAs) after years of declining sales. Other predictions, like a desire to be more directly connected to where food is sourced, have taken on new meaning amid the pandemic and its disruption of every level of the supply chain. That can shape the potential to change their behavior, or to at least be more conscious in their shopping practices," says Rich. "Stories about COVID-19 outbreaks in meat processing plants and photos of farmers harvesting crops with wildfires behind them brings an immediacy to the consumer. Some of the predictions she heard from experts back then feel shockingly prescient among them, the anticipation of consumers’ preoccupation with food and packaging waste, an ever-shrinking tolerance for opaque marketing, and a certainty that the "internet-enabled supercomputers" in our pockets would change how we interact with food and information about it. Since first exploring these issues in Dwell's 10th anniversary issue, things have only gotten more complicated, Rich says. "With 10 years of hindsight, the ways in which our systems are failing us and taking away our power to create change as individuals are really apparent right now," says former Dwell editor Sarah Rich, reflecting on the staggering changes that have transformed the global food supply chain and the means by which our society accesses groceries in the last 10 years. ![]()
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