Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Local startup wants to disrupt the lunch market with delicious, affordable food delivered to a consumer’s home or office. It’s a thing I’ve been writing about a lot lately, and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
So yes, the food delivery segment is way crowded, but we should talk about this new startup called Farm Hill anyway. That’s because the company, which is based in Redwood City, Calif., seeks to differentiate itself by offering meals made from entirely whole ingredients. Oh, and also by targeting customers who don’t live in densely packed urban areas.
Let’s start with the food. Farm Hill is focused specifically on meals made with fresh vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, all of which are locally sourced. It stays away from foods made with stuff like flour, sugar, pasta, bread, or cheese — all of which are guaranteed to kill you.
Farm Hill also has options for customers with special dietary restrictions by offering up healthy meat, vegan, and Paleo options. Meals are priced between $10 and $15 dollars, with healthy snacks also available to customers.
The company is already making deliveries to customers in the San Francisco Bay Area, but is focused solely on towns in the South Bay for now. It makes deliveries in Palo Alto, Redwood City, Campbell, Los Gatos, and San Jose, and is looking to add more nearby towns over time. It hopes to focus on non-urban areas, in part because there are fewer options for customers who are in the suburbs.
While Farm Hill delivers its food to you, it doesn’t follow the same type of on-demand availability as some other food startups. Customers are asked to reserve their lunch before 10:00 am, for deliveries that are made between 11:30 and 1:00 pm. Even with that minor inconvenience, existing customers are sill ordering twice a week on average.
The company was founded by Marc Manara and Mark Wittman, who met each other at Stanford’s d.school. The two had both worked in driving sustainability and were seeking to extend that into the food market. They’re joined by Chef Thea Vengrin, who worked on Facebook’s culinary team and studied at the Culinary Institute of America.
To date, Farm Hill has raised $1 million in seed funding that was led by Eagle Cliff Partners, with participation from Liberty City Ventures, Stanford StartX, and other funds and angels.