Dive Brief:
- Flashfood announced Wednesday that a handful of Gelson’s Market stores in the Los Angeles area will offer $9 produce boxes with seasonal fruits and vegetables nearing their best-by date.
- This partnership marks the food waste technology company’s first grocer tie-up that just includes a produce box offering.
- The tie-up also underscores both Flashfood’s and Gelson’s missions to improve access to healthy, fresh food in Los Angeles, where the cost of living is “higher than it’s ever been,” Flashfood CEO Jordan Schenck said in an interview.
Dive Insight:
While other Flashfood grocery partners sell food across departments nearing their best-by date, Gelson’s is the company’s first retail partner to only offer produce boxes through the Flashfood app.
Launching with a produce box offering was the quickest way onto the Flashfood platform for Gelson’s, Schenck said, adding that offering marked-down produce both lessens shrinkage for the grocer and helps close the healthy food access gap prevalent in the greater Los Angeles area.
“There’s no data integration, because it’s just [Gelson’s] publishing live onto the [Flashfood app],” she said.
The Gelson’s boxes contain $18 worth of produce — double the price consumers pay for the box, a Flashfood spokesperson said. The Flashfood app shows photos of the available boxes, allowing shoppers to see exactly what they are purchasing ahead of time, Schenck said.
Flashfood’s produce boxes are the company’s top-selling item, with more than 1.2 million boxes sold so far this year. Even pre-launch, during Gelson’s “quiet week” of using Flashfood’s platform, the grocer sold out of boxes, Schenck said.
The partnership marks Flashfood’s entrance into Los Angeles and the start of the company’s “launch spree that’s coming for Southern California,” Schenck said.
Flashfood has partnerships in the works that will continue its growth across Southern California, Schenck said. The expansion is expected to continue into early 2026, she said.
