Britain’s largest independent wonky veg box scheme is branching out to 15 more London postcodes after raising over half-a-million pounds.
Delivering misshapen veg to customers’ doors, Oddbox are hoping to cover more of London by expanding form their South London customer base, to the east and west of the capital.
Owners of the company initially sought £350,000 to help grow its operations but were given an extra boost after being backed to the tune of £520,000 following a crowdfunding effort.
Their weekly veg boxes use fruit and veg that don’t meet supermarket or retail specification and would otherwise have been wasted. The farmers are paid a fair price and 10 per cent of their sales go to tackling food poverty through their partner City Harvest.
Emilie Vanpoperinghe, Oddbox co-founder said: “We are incredibly humbled to have exceeded our investment target in such a short space of time. The support we have had from customers and investors has been phenomenal and we can’t thank them enough.
“We believe wholeheartedly in our wonky fruit and veg scheme and we’re looking forward to bringing it to more people.We won’t stop there though, our mission is to fundamentally shift food standards and eventually, normalise wonky produce and we need everyone to get involved.”
Oddbox launched in 2016, after the founders were inspired by the wider use of misshapen produce while on holiday in Portugal.
They currently deliver to over 1,600 homes in South London, and 85 offices. According to the company they have 3000 people on a waiting list.
Their latest cash raising efforts will go towards upgrading their technology and build their brand, to meet their target of serving 12,500 customers by next year.
