San Francisco — Full Harvest, the business-to-business marketplace specializing in surplus and imperfect produce, today announced multiple milestones as it successfully scales its operations to help solve the $2.6T global food waste problem.
“In just a few short months, we’ve been able to make incredible progress toward our mission to solve the produce distribution efficiency problem and reduce on-farm waste,” Full Harvest Founder and CEO Christine Moseley said. “Our new B2B marketplace tools improve the online produce buying/selling process even further, and even more products are using our Verified Rescued Produce on store shelves. However, I consider our greatest recent achievements to be attracting top talent given the current hiring crunch, as well as bringing on additional stellar investment partners – Rabobank and Translink Capital/Japan Airlines (as JAL Innovation Fund) – to set us up for continued success. I’m looking forward to all that our team will achieve in the months ahead as we disrupt the produce supply chain and make 2022 our breakout year.”
Leadership Team Expansion
Full Harvest deepened its bench of proven industry experts, appointing seasoned online marketplace executives Nicolas Genest as Chief Technology Officer and Brenton Keath as Chief Financial Officer. Rounding out the Full Harvest leadership team, Genest will lead the company’s continued marketplace expansion efforts, while Keath will guide its financial strategy. Both will help support Full Harvest’s push to break into new markets, strengthen industry partnerships and enhance its distribution channels.
Genest, who most recently founded CodeBoxx and served as CEO, previously held CTO roles at top digitally-native powerhouses, including Walmart eCommerce, The RealReal, ModCloth, and Vente-privee group (now Veepee). His marketplace background and experience at scaling successful business models helped drive record growth and secure successful exits for past organizations.
Keath was recently CFO/COO of Rakuten Medical and prior to that worked at Rakuten for six years, where he helped execute their global marketplace strategy. He brings decades of experience in Australia, Japan and the US leading global teams in M&A and financial positions at top companies, including KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Hewlett-Packard.
Full Harvest also appointed product expert Omar Chaudhry to VP of Product. Dedicated to helping ecommerce companies meet evolving market needs, he will support the company’s continued product strategy and help ensure an intuitive user experience. Previously a cofounder of OlioBox Inc. and Farmgrub.com, a B2C ag marketplace, Chaudhry has also held several head of product management positions working alongside Nicolas at The RealReal, Modcloth and Vente-privee.
Strategic Funding
Due to an oversubscribed round, Full Harvest closed another $5 million in growth financing from Rabobank’s Food & Agri Innovation Fund (RFAIF) and JAL Innovation Fund, increasing its total Series B to $28 million. With the backing of Rabobank - the global leader in Food & Agriculture banking with a focus on driving the sustainable food transition - as well as JAL Innovation Fund, Full Harvest has widened its access to a larger network of connections that will be integral to the next phase of its rapid growth.
“Too much food ends up being wasted while it is still perfectly edible,” Berry Marttin, member of the Managing Board, Rabobank, said. “With our investment into Full Harvest, we support Christine and her team in tackling the very real problem of food waste at the farm level, by allowing farmers to sell all their fresh produce to commercial food producers, including imperfect or surplus produce. Innovations like these are essential to guarantee a safe and sustainable food supply for a growing global population, and are good for people, nature and to tackle climate change.”
“Software has disrupted traditional, analog-based industries and agriculture is ripe for innovation,” Masanori Yamato, Principal at Translink Capital, said. “Full Harvest’s digital marketplace brings sustainability and the agriculture economics to a new level by converting old-school operations to a more efficient, transparent and real-time supply chain technology solution. The marketplace also utilizes richer analytics and optimization across the whole supply chain to drive efficiency gains that have been realized before. We are excited to help Full Harvest expand into the international markets in the near future.”