Sunbasket

Last updated
Sun Basket, Inc.
Sun Basket Logo 2021.svg
Type of business Private
FoundedApril 2014;8 years ago (2014-04)
Headquarters San Francisco, California, U.S.
Area servedUnited States
Founder(s) Justine Kelly, Adam Zbar
Key peopleDon Barnett (CEO)
Justine Kelly (Executive Chef)
Industry Meal kit
Employees338 (2019) [1]
URL sunbasket.com

Sunbasket is a subscription meal delivery service that ships members fresh, organic, and sustainable ingredients and recipes every week, allowing them to cook their own meals. [2] The company is headquartered in San Francisco, and operates two regional distribution centers in Morgan Hill, CA and Westampton, New Jersey. [3] It is part of the meal kit industry. [4]

Contents

History

Sunbasket was founded in 2014 by San Francisco chef Justine Kelly, [5] former Chef de Cuisine at the Slanted Door, tech entrepreneur Adam Zbar, Tyler MacNiven, the 2006 winner of The Amazing Race and the company's head of user experience, [6] and George Nachtrieb. [7] Kelly appeared on Iron Chef America, and had been cooking in San Francisco for 25 years. Tyler Florence, a celebrity chef, is one of its board members. [3]

By May 2015, the company was serving customers in eight states. [2]

In May 2016, the company raised $11.62M in series A funding, led by PivotNorth Capital, Baseline Ventures, Vulcan Capital Management, Tyler Florence Group and several others. [8] and in July, the company raised $15 million in series B funding. [9] By July, the company had expanded its operations by opening an East Coast distribution center, and announced plans to open a third. [10] The company grew from 10 employees from its 2014 launch to 400 in July 2016. [9]

In February 2017, the company announced a $15 million Series C funding round led by Sapphire Ventures and several others. [11] In May, the company announced a Series C-2 round, led by Unilever Ventures, the venture capital arm of food giant Unilever. [12] The funding was earmarked to increase its coverage area by opening a distribution center in the Midwest, to go along with its two existing centers on the West and East Coast. [13]

In January 2018, the company secured a $57.9 million series D and debt segment funding round, and also announced an expansion with two new distribution centers in the Midwest and East Coast. [14] In March, the company opened a 190,000 sq. ft distribution center in New Jersey. [15] In May, the company announced it was working with the American Diabetes Association to introduce diabetes-friendly recipes. [16] In October, the company's meals received the American Heart Association's Heart-Check certification. [17] In November, the company announced that it was working with the American Cancer Society to create meals that met that organization's health guidelines. [18]

In May 2019, Sunbasket raised $30 million in Series E funding, including an investment from Unilever Ventures. [19] In August, the company announced it was closing its St. Louis, Missouri distribution center. [20]

In December 2021, Sunbasket merged with Prüvit Ventures, a keto supplement maker, in an all-stock deal, with Sunbasket and Prüvit becoming wholly-owned subsidiaries of PSB Holdings, a new holding company. [21] [22]

Service

The company serves customers who have strict dietary restrictions, offering paleo, gluten-free and vegetarian options, among others. [23] [24] It is one of the few meal kit companies that is USDA - Certified Organic. [25] The ingredients are sourced from California farms. [2]

Personnel

The company's recipes are created by Chef Justine Kelly, the former Chef de Cuisine at the Slanted Door, and a former contestant on Iron Chef America. [26] Tyler MacNiven, the 2006 winner of The Amazing Race, is a co-founder and the company's head of user experience. [6] Tyler Florence, a celebrity chef, is one its board members. [2]

Sustainability

In response to industry concerns about wasteful packaging in meal kits, the company set a goal to produce zero-waste packaging and developed recyclable insulation liners using recyclable PET fiber; ice packs made from GMO cotton and water; and fully compostable ingredient bags. [27] [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

Sedano's Supermarkets is the nation's largest Hispanic retailer and largest Hispanic-owned supermarket chain. With headquarters in Miami-Dade County. Sedano's employs approximately 3,000 associates and operates 35 stores across Florida in Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, and Osceola counties. Sedano's is also the largest member of Associated Grocers of Florida, a wholesale grocery food cooperative. In 2020, Sedano's Supermarkets was named Food and Wine’s 20 Best Regional Supermarket Chains of All Time.

Gousto, a trading name of SCA Investments Limited, is a British meal kit retailer, headquartered in Shepherd's Bush, London, founded by Timo Boldt and James Carter. Gousto supplies subscribers with recipe kit boxes which include ready-measured, fresh ingredients and easily followed recipes.

Gagan Biyani is an Indian-American serial entrepreneur, marketer, and journalist. He was a co-founder of Udemy, an online education company, and was co-founder and CEO of Sprig, a food delivery company.

Foodpanda is an online food and grocery delivery platform owned by Berlin-based Delivery Hero. Foodpanda operates as the lead brand for Delivery Hero in Asia, with its headquarters in Singapore. It is currently the largest food and grocery delivery platform in Asia, outside of China, operating in 12 markets across Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sweetgreen</span> American fast casual restaurant chain

Sweetgreen is an American fast casual restaurant chain that serves salads. It was founded in November 2006 by Nicolas Jammet, Nathaniel Ru, and Jonathan Neman. In August 2007, they opened their first store in Washington, D.C., three months after they graduated from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munchery</span>

Munchery Inc. was an online food ordering and meal delivery service that served parts of San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City. The company shut down abruptly on January 21, 2019. It was valued at $300 million. The website currently relaunched as a recipes-only website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Zbar</span> American entrepreneur

Adam Zbar is a Webby Award-winning Bay Area entrepreneur who is CEO of Sun Basket, a San Francisco-based organic meal kit delivery company, which he co-founded with Chef Justine Kelly. Previously Zbar founded social analytics company Tap11, and same day food delivery service Lasso, which closed when he launched Sun Basket. He was also formerly CEO of micro-blogging service Zannel.

Careem is a Dubai-based super app with operations in over 100 cities, covering 12 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia regions. The company, which was valued at over US$2 billion in 2018, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber after being acquired for $3.1 billion in January 2020. Careem expanded into the food delivery business with Careem Now in November 2018 and launched a digital payment platform, Careem Pay in April 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home Chef</span>

Home Chef is a Chicago, Illinois-based meal kit and food delivery company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes to subscribers weekly in the United States. According to the company it delivers three million meals monthly to its subscribers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Apron</span> Meal delivery service

Blue Apron Inc. is an American ingredient-and-recipe meal kit company headquartered in New York City, operating its services exclusively in the United States. It offers weekly boxes containing ingredients, which also includes suggested recipes that must be cooked by hand by the customer using the pre-ordered ingredients.

Zume, Inc. is an American manufacturing-technology company headquartered in Camarillo, California. Founded in 2015 as an automated food delivery company, in 2020 the company shifted to food packaging and delivery logistics.

Ando was an online food delivery app that was created by David Chang. It was an online desk-lunch restaurant that offers “second generation” American food to neighborhoods in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meal kit</span> Subscription service–foodservice business model

A meal kit is a subscription service–foodservice business model where a company sends customers pre-portioned and sometimes partially-prepared food ingredients and recipes to prepare home-cooked meals. Services that send pre-cooked meals are called meal delivery services. This subscription model has been cited as an example of the personalization of the food and beverage industry.

Plated was an American ingredient-and-recipe meal kit service that has been acquired by Albertsons. The company was founded in 2012 and became well known through its participation in Techstars in 2013, Shark Tank in 2014 and Beyond the Tank in 2015. Plated's founders, Nick Taranto and Josh Hix, earned a deal on Shark Tank that fell through, but negotiated a deal with another investor after the show was filmed. The company accepted several rounds of venture capital investments and remained private until it was acquired by Albertsons in September 2017.

Goodfood Market Corp., doing business as Goodfood, is a Canadian online grocery, home meal and meal kit company, based in Montreal, Quebec. Goodfood reached 200,000 subscribers as of August 2019, an estimated 40% to 45% of the meal kit market. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker FOOD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HelloFresh</span> German meal kit provider

HelloFresh SE is a publicly traded meal kit company based in Berlin, Germany. It is the largest meal-kit provider in the United States, and also has operations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Europe and Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spyce Kitchen</span> Boston-based robotic-powered restaurant engineered by MIT grads

Spyce Kitchen or just Spyce was a robotic-powered restaurant which prepares food in "three minutes or less".

Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in July 2014, Swiggy is based in Bangalore and operates in 500 Indian cities as of September 2021. Besides food delivery, Swiggy also provides on-demand grocery deliveries under the name Instamart, and a same-day package delivery service called Swiggy Genie.

Freshly was a New York-based prepared meal delivery company that delivers throughout the United States. Founded by Michael Wystrach and Carter Comstock, the company ships one million meals per week and delivers to the contiguous United States. In 2020 Freshly was acquired by Nestlé for US$1.5 billion.

Matt Salzberg is a businessperson and entrepreneur, known for co-founding Blue Apron, Embark Veterinary and Suma Brands. He is currently founder and Managing Partner at Material, a venture fund focused on systematic company creation opportunities.

References

  1. ↑ "Sun Basket profile", Craft, retrieved 13 August 2019
  2. 1 2 3 4 "San Francisco startup cooks up service that brings healthy food to your door". bizjournals.com. 2015-05-11. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  3. 1 2 Whitten, Sarah (29 March 2018). "Meal kit company Sun Basket bought a cave, and it's helping them beat Blue Apron". CNBC.
  4. ↑ "Meal kit delivery startups are eating into supermarket revenue". businessinsider.com. 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  5. ↑ Clark, Kate (2019-05-21). "As meal-kit melee stretches on, Sun Basket whips up $30M Series E". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-02-14.
  6. 1 2 "Workout Buddies and Work Colleagues". wsj.com. 2015-08-03. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  7. ↑ "Sun Basket cooks up another $15 million for gluten-free and paleo meal kits". techcrunch.com. 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  8. ↑ "Sun Basket wraps up Series A with $11.6 mln round". pehub.com. 2016-05-19. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  9. 1 2 3 "Meal kits are becoming part of modern lifestyles, says Sun Basket CEO as organic meal kit co raises $15 million". foodnavigator-usa.com. 2016-07-26. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  10. ↑ "Sun Basket Raises $15M Up Round as Overall Food Delivery Market Cools". inc.com. 2016-07-26. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  11. ↑ "U.S. food delivery service Sun Basket hires banks for IPO: sources". reuters.com. 2010-12-04. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  12. ↑ "Exclusive: Unilever Is Investing in the Red-Hot Meal Kit Space". fortune.com. 2017-05-11. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  13. ↑ "Unilever Backs Organic Meal Kit Startup in $9.2M Series C-2 Round". foxbusiness.com. 2017-05-11. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  14. ↑ "Sun Basket hits $275 million run rate and raises $57.8 million to fuel meal delivery expansion". venturebeat.com. 2018-01-25. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  15. ↑ "Sun Basket opens larger distribution center in New Jersey". fooddive.com. 2018-03-02. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  16. ↑ "Meal kit service Sun Basket tries to reach a new audience: 30 million people with diabetes". cnbc.com. 2018-05-17. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  17. ↑ "Sun Basket Launches Heart-Healthy Meal Delivery Service". cookinglight.com. 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  18. ↑ "Sun Basket Offers Meal Kits Based on American Cancer Society Guidelines". specialtyfood.com. 2018-11-01. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  19. ↑ "Meal kit delivery service Sun Basket raises US$30m backed by Unilever". www.foodbusinessafrica.com. 2019-05-22. Retrieved 2020-04-14.
  20. ↑ "Sun Basket leaving Valmeyer". Republic Times. June 12, 2019. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  21. ↑ "Meal kit company Sunbasket merges with Keto lifestyle company Prüvit Ventures". 2022-01-31.
  22. ↑ Cheng, Candy. "Meal kit startup Sunbasket is combining with Prüvit, a keto supplements-maker, in a deal that values the new company at $1.3 billion". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-02-14.
  23. ↑ Watson, Elaine (2015-10-26). "Sun Basket poised for growth in burgeoning meal-kit-delivery market". Food Navigator USA. Food Navigator USA. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  24. ↑ "Why Sun Basket Is More Like Stitch Fix Than Blue Apron". cheddar.com. 2018-04-19. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  25. ↑ Gunst, Kathy (2016-06-02). "Do Meal Kits Provide Great Taste Along With Convenience?". wbur.org. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  26. ↑ Hare, Sarah. "Another Hot Chef". Diablo Magazine. Diablo Magazine. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  27. ↑ "Meal kits are convenient, but what about the wasteful packaging?". mnn.com. 2016-08-27. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.