Skipping the Grocery Store: Door to Door Organics Receives $2 Million Investment

There are several startups competing to tackle online grocery and provide consumers with local, healthy food. One such company, Door to Door Organics, recently received a $2 million, Series A investment from  Greenmont Capital to further propel it into the market.  The company will reportedly be using this capital to improve the company’s current operations and customer experience, rather than expanding to other geographic regions. It currently serves the Colorado, Kansas City, Chicago, Michigan, and some East Coast markets.

Door to Door Organics has been in operation for about seven years and sources products from local, organic farmers and delivers it to people’s homes, like an even greener Fresh Direct. You sign up on their website and get a box delivered each week that contains, at minimum, 4-5 types of fruit and 4-5 types of veggies. What items you get, and the amount of each, varies depending on the season and personal preference. In some locations, you can also order meat, sweets and other non-produce products. Its staff build relationships with farmers in order to source the range of products that end up going in your box.

There are several significant competitors to Door to Door Organics and each startup takes a slightly different approach. Farmigo, for example, is a platform that connects farmers and producers with buyers and is like a tech-savvy CSA. You order online from the farm and pick up your goods from a set location. According to its website, Farmigo has more than 5 farms participating in 15 different states. It also attracted a $2 million Angel investment, according to Crunchbase. Greenling is another company that facilitates ordering local, organic groceries and delivers to customer’s doorsteps. RelayFoods includes both more local artisan and typical grocery-store items than the others and utilizes pick-up locations. It currently focuses on Virginia but is expanding into Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. RelayFoods has raised $4.3 million.

“I think Farmigo and Greenling are both designed around people’s desire to ‘do good.’  And that’s a great thing,” says Chad Arnold, President and CEO of Door to Door Organics. “We’re all about asking ourselves ‘what does the best customer experience look like?’”

But when it comes to the best customer experience, many of these growing companies get good reviews. Across four different locations, Door to Door Organics averages 4.5 stars on Yelp, which is about the same for Greenling and Relay Foods (Farmigo does not have a profile yet).

As each of these startups, and others, refine their business models and push geographic boundaries, eaters stand to win out with more access to healthy, fresh food.