With an advisory board of members from Imperfect Foods and Hollar, plus backing from Upfront Ventures, Martie - a new online discount grocery store - launches in California.
Martie, the new online grocery store offering brand name pantry staples at 40-70% off retail, launches today, starting with delivery to California residents. Offering hundreds of quality brands such as Annie’s, Heinz and Kettle, Martie diverts perfectly good surplus pantry staples from going to landfill and delivers them directly to customers' doorsteps, making foods more accessible for everyone.
With no memberships or subscriptions, and 40-70% off always, Martie is committed to make foods more accessible through pricing and distribution in a time where food prices have increased by 4.6% in the past 12 months, and more than 13m American families are food insecure, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Compelled by the urgency of our collective food waste issue and the opportunity therein, female serial food and tech entrepreneurs, Louise Fritjofsson and Kari Morris, teamed up to provide a solution to the market. In the last 10 months, the founder-duo built Martie remotely, in which time both had a baby, secured a $3M in funding from Upfront Ventures, and signed on an advisory board of seasoned executives including former CEO of Imperfect Foods, Philip Behn.
“We are solving a problem we ran into as founders ourselves. After collectively launching more than 5 food brands, the disconnect between the value of surplus inventory–stemming from package changes, seasonal products and change in orders–and available outlets, causes 30-40% of all foods produced to go to landfill” says co-founder, Louise Fritjofsson.
“This is a staggering 108 billion pounds of food that can be saved, and it’s a problem so deeply integrated into the full food production cycle that it will not be solved in itself” continues co-founder, Kari Morris.
As the only female-founded online grocery store, Martie’s $3M seed funding makes up just 0.03% of the $10B that has been poured into the male-dominated industry in 2021 alone, even though grocery shoppers are overwhelmingly female. According to Pew Research, 80% of mothers are the primary home cook and grocery shopper. Martie looks forward to representing the female voice and making sure the digital shelves are stocked with the foods and prices that shoppers really need.
Launching with over 400 SKUs from over 300 brands, Martie offers shoppers 9 stocked categories of shelf-stable goods such as coffee and tea, nut butters, cereal, pastas, soups, and more. By maintaining a banned ingredients list, shoppers can trust the high standard of quality foods and recognizable brands. With no membership or subscription costs, and a minimum of 40-70% off goods, Martie offers significant savings and convenience to customers.
“Martie is tackling two of the biggest challenges we as a society face today, as food waste is a sizable contributor to our global climate crisis as well as many American families are struggling to make ends meet,” says Kobie Fuller of Upfront Ventures. “We are excited by Martie’s winning combination of incomparable savings, ease of shopping, convenience of home delivery and positive impact on the planet. Martie will quickly become a household name and make a real difference in people's lives”.
Martie will first establish itself in its home state of California in Q4 of 2021. Future expansion includes nationwide delivery and an ever growing list of like-minded quality brands and suppliers.
Martie is a new online grocery store for discounted brand name pantry staples, aiming to make high-quality food accessible to everyone, and end food waste. By saving perfectly good packaged food destined for landfill, Martie can offer discounts of 40-70% off on an ever-changing selection. Available first to California residents, Martie looks forward to nationwide delivery soon with an expanding list of brands and products. For more information, visit Martie.com and follow on Instagram @MartieFoods.