Online grocery retailer FreshDirect has launched a new video series that showcases several of its specialty food suppliers.
“FreshDirect has a unique and industry-leading approach to sourcing the best local, fresh food and products through the company’s most valuable asset—its unrivaled relationships with its best-in-class vendor partners,” John MacDonald, chief marketing officer, FreshDirect, told SFA News Daily
The company’s supplier relationships help differentiate it from competitors, he said, which led to the creation of the “Sourced” video series.
“The series Sourced was developed to help bring to life the passion our vendor partners share with us, while not just showing consumers how food is made but why it is made,” said MacDonald.
The first set of videos include interviews with six vendor partners, including SFA member Brooklyn Delhi, along with Hepworth Farms, White Moustache Yogurt, Partners Coffee Roasters, Great Gun Oysters, and Wells Homestead Acres. FreshDirect focused the initial videos in the series on local suppliers from New York City and the surrounding area, MacDonald said.
The stylish videos feature interviews with founders and often other family members involved in the companies, and tell the story of both the food and the people who produce it.
“This series allowed us to deepen our relationships with our vendors even further as we learned about their journey while listening to their stories, and even meeting generations of family members,” said MacDonald. “It was incredible to see the passion shine through in each and every one of our vendor partners that we’ve spotlighted so far.”
The most recent video in the series features an interview with twin sisters Amy and Gail Hepworth, seventh-generation farmers who run Hepworth Farms, a 500-acre organic farm about 65 miles north of New York City. The farm supplies FreshDirect with farm boxes filled with produce selected from among its 300 varieties of crops.
“We know that what we are picking that day, the customer is going to have that box the next day, and that is a very direct connection to us,” said Amy Hepworth.
In the Sourced video on Brooklyn Delhi, founder Chitra Agrawal (pictured above) told her story of growing up in New Jersey and melding that background with her Indian heritage to create her unique line of condiments.
“I started this business as a passionate home cook, and so I wanted these products to inspire home cooks,” she said.
In other Sourced videos:
• Homa Dashtaki, founder of White Moustache Yogurt, told the story of how she moved her business from California to Brooklyn because of what she described as a more favorable climate for small businesses.
• Sam Klein, green coffee buyer, Partners Coffee Roasters, said the company seeks to be a “predictable buyer” so that it can foster stable relationships with its coffee farmers around the world.
• Paul McCormick, owner of Great Gun Oyster Farm, in Moriches Bay, New York, said he got his start in oyster farming after discovering small-scale aquaculture, which allowed him to pursue his childhood passion for fishing off the shore of Long Island.
• Matthew Wells, owner of Wells Homestead Acres on Long Island, told the story about how he returned home to run the family farm, which was founded 350 years ago, after the death of his father.
MacDonald said FreshDirect has been promoting the videos on social media, in customer emails and on its blog.
“We are really proud of the series, so much so that we are already planning to produce more for next year,” said MacDonald.
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