Alexander Wong and Parker Hughes became friends when building a Lego house in the second grade. That was just the start of a long history of building things. In high school, they had their own side hustle: Wong would bake pastries like croissants and Hughes would sell smoothies out of his truck.
Now, in their third year of college, they combined their love for creating and the food industry, and co-founded BRÜZD Foods, a startup that delivers a surprise package of local, seasonal Grade B produce that would have been thrown out or composted by farmers. This way, the farmers get money for their “ugly” produce that they’ve historically never received money for, and food waste and the energy from importing food from across the country is reduced, and customers receive a bag of fresh produce for $22.
This past weekend, BRÜZD Foods recovered two tons of produce going to waste or compost. The company is about to hit 500 deliveries and about $10,000 in revenue.
The company, founded in 2017, started with the goal of being a juice company. Hughes and Wong wanted to sell juices made from Grade B produce. They had gotten as far as creating a business model, getting investors, creating recipes, and even finding a food manufacturing facility. But they could not find a distributor who would deliver Grade B produce. And thus, a new idea was born: they were going to be the Grade B produce deliverers.
At first, they only had three to four customers and a mission statement on Facebook. Wong and Hughes would drive to a farm and deliver the produce in UPS boxes with a handwritten sharpie thank you note, and the customer would Venmo them the money.
“When we look back on it, like not even 10 months ago, this was a business that was run out of a disgusting Allston apartment and a Corolla. And we had nothing,” Hughes said.
A few weeks into its website launch, BRÜZD Foods received good reviews and it took off. They increased the staff to about five college students passionate about the environment and the startup’s mission. They’ve delivered every weekend except during winter break. Hughes and Wong have done this all while still being full-time students.
While Wong, a Boston College student studying in London this past academic year, focused on the financial paperwork side, Hughes, an Emerson student, handled all the in-person physical needs.
Wong, who flew to Boston for a couple of weeks during a break, said they’ve accomplished so much these past few month even though they weren’t even in the same hemisphere, and he’s excited to see what BRÜZD Foods can do this summer. “It’s going to be a bloodbath,” he said.
The current waitlist exceeds 200 people, but Hughes and Wong are trying to get people off the waitlist as they’re expanding the company. They are also planning on increasing the amount of local farms they purchase produce from.
BRÜZD Foods has raised a total of $37,500 in funding. They plan on closing the seed round in spring 2020. The funds have gone to scaling and making BRÜZD Foods larger—the company invested in a cargo vehicle, legal fees, website hosting, paying delivery drivers, and refrigerated storage space so they don’t have to flip the produce the same day they buy it.
Both Hughes and Wong are passionate about the environmental impact of reducing food waste.
“The main issue that I really like to focus on are the environmental impacts, and the cost of farmers are not doing business with us,” Wong said. “If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse omitting country in the world, which is just crazy. 60 million tons of produce is wasted every year. And a ton of it is just because of cosmetic standards. So it's really one of like the dumbest problems that we have in America.”
Both of them have worked in the food industry and have seen the amount of waste that occurs. Hughes said that if BRÜZD Foods can make caring about this problem cool, there can be a huge cultural shift.
In addition to creating an environmentally friendly company, BRÜZD Foods also launched a podcast called “Ripe Ideas” for people who are interested in environmental stewardship. They put out an interview-style podcast on Spotify and iTunes two times a month where people “tell their stories, like the trials and tribulations, of the founders of other social enterprises, and also environmentally conscious researchers,” Hughes said.
Even though Hughes and Wong are still in college, they plan on continuing and scaling BRÜZD Foods even after they graduate.
“Our goal is to raise enough money that we can eat,” Wong laughed.
Editor's note: Parker Hughes was featured in BostInno's 25 Under 25 list in 2018.
