Imperfect Foods turns five years old this week! When we first started, a handful of employees shared a tiny office in Emeryville, CA where it was commonplace to sit on the floor because there weren’t enough desks. We would still be in that tiny office today if people like you weren’t willing to support our mission to eliminate food waste and build a better food system for everyone.
The Imperfect family has grown to over 400,000 customers (including you!) across 38 states. This incredible community has collectively saved more than 130 million pounds of food, an impactful step toward a less wasteful food system.
This moment is about more than groceries. Your support helps us provide good, living-wage jobs to over 1,600 Imperfect team members across the country. Not only that, thanks to you, more than 1,200 farmers and producers have new outlets for food that they used to throw away, leave in a field, or sell for a fraction of its worth. Many of these are family-owned businesses and a growing number of them are minority-owned.
In addition to investing in a more sustainable food system, together we’re also creating a kinder one. We’ve improved food access by donating over 5 million pounds of food to date to 100 nonprofits and food banks across the nation. We’ve also delivered over 400,000 reduced-cost boxes to families eligible for SNAP benefits and set up our Feeding Change Fund to help nourish nonprofits doing the work to bring food where it’s needed most.
Your voice has helped inspire and grow a movement. You’ve helped us bring the topic of food waste to the forefront – it’s now the subject of John Oliver segments and documentary films alike! Your feedback and support on key issues from food deserts to racial injustice to climate change proves that passionate people can make a difference and that compassionate communities can make history, together.
I’m excited to see what the next five years hold for our company and our community. By then we’ll deliver to the entire United States and finally be recovering not just millions, but billions of pounds of food from going to waste each year. We’ll expand food accessibility even further and be a stronger ally to those fighting to eliminate food insecurity. We’ll never stop working toward a less wasteful and more compassionate food system.
Thank you for your support and commitment to rethinking our food system for the better.
– Philip Behn, CEO of Imperfect Foods
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