Our Story

 
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In 2019, we embarked on a journey to challenge the status quo on how food systems work. With fresh produce traveling hundreds of kilometers from farms to plate and one third of all food produced going to waste, we settled in Lisbon, Portugal to find a solution for these two problems. With limited experience in the food and agriculture sector, the only thing we were certain about was our goal to support regional farmers achieve a full harvest and for local consumers to have a healthy diet, eating both regionally and seasonally. The outcome of that process? Equal food now offers a sustainable, healthy and convenient solution to our customers: a weekly box of fresh, imperfect produce from regional farmers straight to the doorstep.

 

Our Mission

We started this project in Lisbon, Portugal to help create a world in which ⅓ of food no longer goes to waste. In the European Union alone, 50 Million tons of fruits and vegetables, not even counting packaged and processed food, go to waste every single year. About 1.3 billion tonnes of edible food around the globe gets thrown away annually, generating 8% of global CO2 emissions (FAO, 2020). A large part of food waste is a direct result of retail beauty standards. A crooked pear, a scarred avocado or a greenish lemon are deemed “not pretty enough” and therefore usually ends up in landfill. We’re here to change that and we look forward to a world where all food count and nothing goes to waste.

Our Values

We strive to maximize the amount we manage to prevent from going to waste, while paying a fair price to our farmers, as well as all other people involved in our system. At the same time, we constantly look for ways to minimize our transportation carbon footprint, minimize the amount of plastic used for packaging and show how sexy imperfect fruits and veggies can actually be.
We also want to make people happy: farmers, customers, collaborators, and employees alike.

The road ahead

We want to expand our offering of regional, seasonal and imperfect fresh produce deliveries as much as we can. As of today (Feb, 2021), we can only offer deliveries in and around Lisbon (FAQs). We are planning to expand to other cities in Portugal and beyond. This growth needs to be sustainable, however, and inline with our values before making the next big step.