These days, food delivery and meal preparation services are all the rage. As individuals become more and more pressed for time, they’re finding themselves increasingly more willing to pay to have groceries delivered or meal ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes sent right to their door. However, as is the case with meal prep and grocery shopping, occasionally produce and other items turn into food waste. Ashley Weingart, the Founder and CEO of Perfectly Imperfect Produce, is doing her part to tackle this massive issue head on. Her service, Perfectly Imperfect Produce, allows consumers to receive shipments of the slightly less perfect produce items that would have otherwise gone to waste at a great value. Reducing food waste and saving money? Sounds like a win-win to us! We recently caught up with Ashley to learn how she started her business and what she does to stay financially fit!
SavviHer: Tell us about you – who is Perfectly Imperfect Produce?
Ashley: Perfectly Imperfect Produce is a fruit and vegetable delivery subscription service. Our mission is to reduce food waste and improve healthy food access for all. We rescue fruits and vegetables from local farms and wholesalers that are at risk of going to waste because they are unique in size, shape or color and are rejected by others. We package them up into mixed boxes of various sizes that our customers order through our website and we deliver to their homes.
Each week we provide our customers with an original recipe giving them an idea for something to make with that week’s box. Our goal is to inspire them to get creative in the kitchen while preparing healthy, simple dishes.
For every box we sell, we make donations to local food pantries to help feed our neighbors in need. We believe that healthy food access is a right not a privilege. So far we have rescued over a million pounds of produce. In 2019 alone, we have donated 60,000 pounds of fresh produce.
SavviHer: What was your inspiration for starting your business?
A: When I joined my husband’s family’s 100+ year old wholesale produce business to assist with marketing and communications, I quickly began to learn more about the massive amount of food waste that is created in the food industry. In fact nearly HALF of all food produced in our nation is never eaten. Approximately 6 BILLION pounds of that waste is made up of fruits and veggies that are shifted aside because they look less than perfect in the eyes of some. They may be a bit blemished or a unique size or shape, perhaps they are a bit off color, but it is all perfectly fresh and nutritionally sound.
This food ends up in landfills where it turns to methane gas which is detrimental to our environment. When 21% of our land, 18% of our water and 10% of our energy is used to grow food, that’s an awful lot of resources used to grow food that’s not even being consumed. Meanwhile, 40 million Americans go hungry and 1 in 5 people in Cleveland are food insecure.
The contradiction of all of this didn’t sit well with me. There is no reason we should be wasting all this food when there are so many who need more of it. PIP was the result of a “what if” moment. “What if we used the buying power of many to purchase these rejected fruits and veggies so farms can get paid for their hard work. This would allow us help reduce waste and then also get more of this food into the hands of the hungry.”
It was never supposed to be its own business. It was really just a program of our family’s wholesale produce business to do good within our community. But then it took on a life of its own. When our family’s business closed after 117 years, I decided to continue Perfectly Imperfect Produce as it’s own company. What I thought could be the end was really just the beginning!
SavviHer: Take us through a day in the life!
A: Rescuing produce and distributing it all throughout Northeast Ohio every week is no easy task. Over the weekend and on Mondays we are talking with our suppliers including farms throughout the region, to determine what product they have that they need help moving. We’re pulling orders and paying bills. Tuesdays all the product makes it to our warehouse in Willoughby Hills where we inspect it. Boxes are taped in preparation for packing. Wednesday we pack it all up with the help of several folks who work at Produce Packaging, Inc. where we lease space. We’re communicating with our delivery folks to get all their routing in place. Thursday we deliver conventional boxes and Fridays are organic delivery days. We’re troubleshooting and ensuring everyone received their order and is happy with it. Thursdays we also post the weekly recipe and we communicate with our friends at The Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland regarding the donation we have for the week. Then we prepare to do it all over again for the next week!
SavviHer: What is your favorite project to work on/client to work with?
A: What I love most is hearing from customers who tell us how PIP has helped them begin eating healthier and how it is encouraging them (and their children) to try new fruits and veggies that they might otherwise not have purchased.
SavviHer: How do you stay inspired?
A: Running a startup business that moves at such a fast pace can sometimes be daunting. And balancing it all while also running a household with three children can be downright overwhelming. I make a huge effort to take care of my own physical and mental health first so that I can be on my “A Game” every single day. So every single day starts at the gym at 5:30 am. The goals I meet there help remind me what I am capable of outside of the gym.
It’s not difficult to continually be driven to do our best when we are witness so frequently to the massive amount of food being wasted in our nation and when seeing the need of so many people right here in Northeast Ohio who don’t have enough food. Ultimately, that’s what gets me out of bed every morning; the desire to create positive change in our world to ensure that no food goes to waste and every person has the healthy foods they need to thrive.
SavviHer: If you could give your younger self some advice, what would it be?
A: Life as an entrepreneur is a rollercoaster ride of emotions. One day you feel like you’re killing it and the next day (or hour even) you’re ready to throw in the towel. If I could give my younger self (or newly budding entrepreneurs) some advice, I’d tell myself/them the following:
- Ensure that you are extremely passionate about whatever it is that you are starting up. Because it will require a massive amount of time and effort to get it off the ground and then to continually sustain it. You need to believe in what you’re doing so much that you are willing to go many months maybe even years before you are able to pay yourself for your work.
- People will think you’re a little crazy. They will say things that make you doubt your goals and intentions. Don’t listen to them. Follow your gut and trust your instincts.
- When you’re getting started, do your research and plan properly, but don’t dwell on it because it may only slow you down and cause you to lose momentum. In science, “the first law” says that “an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, with the same direction and speed. Motion (or lack of motion) cannot change without an unbalanced force acting.” I have found the same idea to be true for launching a start up business. There’s a lot of things you can’t figure out until you start doing them. Don’t plan your new business to its death.
- You’re going to want to give up, like at least a few times a week. Don’t. Because what feels like the worst possible case scenario might actually just be the entry point to something even better.
SavviHer: What has been your favorite thing you’ve worked on?
A: We recently launched a program with Canton Local Schools where we now offer free delivery to customers there when they utilize a special code and have their box delivered to the school. We are also delivering bulk produce for their cafeteria. I made the first deliveries myself and I was blown away by the excitement shown by that community all over fruits and veggies. In an area with few options for food, it is amazing to see the impact we can have by delivering fresh produce right into people’s homes or offices and now into their school. Our work there was covered on the front page of the Canton Repository, Canton’s daily newspaper. We are excited about the possibilities of partnering with other schools, especially in areas with low food access.
SavviHer: How do you prioritize your financial health? What are your financial goals for 2020?
A: My degrees are in Journalism and Psychology so my understanding of financial management going into this was minimal. And since Perfectly Imperfect Produce began as a program of our family’s business, I really never intended to be managing the financials of business on my own. Nonetheless, as we have quickly become a half million dollar company in our first few years, I have been forced to learn more about properly managing our financials.
I block off time every week to spend working on financial tasks. As I’ve learned more about how to better analyze our financial data, I’m working on doing a better job at applying those learnings more efficiently to our business so that we can evolve where needed. Thus far I have managed to run this business funded completely by our customers with no outside investments or funding. I’ve “bootstrapped” it, if you will. In 2020, I’d like to begin to work with funding organizations or investors to help us take things to the next level. I’m also hoping to tighten things up and reduce costs where possible, without sacrificing the quality of our product and the great customer service we are known for. I think if we can increase our margins a bit, it will offer the funds we need to properly staff this effort so that we can get to all the many things on our large wish list of to-dos. If we can increase sales it will help us gather up the funding we need to properly market ourselves, build awareness and therefore rescue even more food and feed even more people!
SavviHer: How can others get involved with or learn more about you?
A: Rescuing food is a constant battle. While we have come so far since we began in 2016 we need your help! Check out all our box options along with more information about our story on our website.
EAT WITH PURPOSE!
We would like to thank Ashley for sharing her story and for her time in helping create this post! For more on Perfectly Imperfect Produce, check out their website, follow along on Instagram or send Ashley a note at: Ashley@perfectlyimperfectproduce.com.
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