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KitcheNet
How it started
KitcheNet was founded by a group of young University of Chicago entrepreneurs with the goal of redesigning urban food distribution to prioritize the health of our next generation and community economy. Creating a healthy food system amid poverty is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Building stores in food deserts does not address nutritional inequality. Store owners still rely on sales of highly processed junk food and liquor to make a living.
How it works
KitcheNet curates and delivers fresh fruits as healthy office and home snacks. It delivered about 250,000 pounds of high-quality fresh fruits to office-based users in 2019. Users pay a delivery fee of $7 to $10 , 30% of which subsidizes distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables to local stores in food deserts.
KitcheNet’s “just-in-time” sourcing and curation model drastically changes users’ experience of fruits. Distributors with generations of experience hand-select each weekly delivery using fresh fruits that arrived at the local market that day. From packing to delivery, everything is designed to help people experience fresh fruit differently.
To ensure every community has access to fresh food, KitcheNet extends its distribution to help store owners in urban food deserts sell more fresh fruits and vegetables. With this dual-impact model, every delivery to an office or home also helps supply fresh food to food deserts, allowing store owners to sell more fresh fruits profitably and affordably.
What’s needed
Trista Li, KitcheNet’s CEO and founder wants to connect with an award-winning chef who is cause-focused, such as José Andrés or David Chang. She would also like to connect with the James Beard Foundation and WW (Weight Watchers). As an operator on the agriculture side, KitcheNet needs a meals and recipe engineering connection.
Contact
KitcheNet, Chicago, Illinois
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