Gopuff and Misfits Market, two Philadelphia-rooted food delivery startups that have struck it big nationally, have announced a new partnership.
The deal will see Gopuff deliver a new line of more than 300 sustainably sourced groceries via Misfits Market. It's the first partnership between the two local success stories that have scaled back operations in recent years.
Based in Callowhill and founded by two Drexel University alum in Yakir Gola and Rafael Ilishayev, Gopuff's business model centers on delivering food, beverages and other household items from their warehouses. Misfits Market was founded by University of Pennsylvania alum Abhi Ramesh and launched in North Philadelphia in 2018, partnering with farms and other food producers to deliver excess organic produce to customer's doorsteps. After shuttering its Burlington County distribution center and cutting headcount nationwide by 33%, it moved its headquarters from South Jersey to Maryland a year ago.
Now the two companies hope their partnership is mutually beneficial as they continue to recoup after periods of downsizing followed rapid growth. For Misfits Market, it expands the company's reach through Gopuff's extensive customer base. For Gopuff, it found during a pilot run that offering fresh grocery items led to a more than 50% increase in sales for produce, dairy, prepared foods and meat, with more than 25% of orders containing a fresh grocery item.
“Extending our food value supply chain to power Gopuff's fresh grocery expansion gets us one step closer to our vision of reimagining the food system and eradicating food waste,” Ramesh said in a statement.
The partnership, which will see Misfits Market delivering to Gopuff's micro-fulfillment centers nearly every day, adds items like fruits, vegetables, dairy, fresh bread, poultry and other meat items to Gopuff's existing inventory of some 5,000 products. Users can access the new offerings under a "new grocery" tab in the app.
For Gopuff, it's the latest in a string of what it's calling "strategic initiatives to drive growth."
On Monday, it announced a new logistics platform called "Powered by Gopuff" with a main feature, Storefronts, which partners with consumer goods companies to provide delivery services for their ecommerce websites. It tested the feature for six months with major brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever, Mondelēz International and Nestlé, and the platform is now available to any brands currently offered on Gopuff. The platform also allows consumer goods companies to launch a direct-to-consumer website in days, where orders route through Gopuff's fulfillment centers and delivery drivers.
Prior to that, the company rolled out a number of enhanced benefits for its FAM membership program, a $7.99-per-month subscription feature. Those have included a 20-minute delivery promise for an additional $1.49 per order and a 50% discount for students.
