GrubMarket announced it has completed the acquisition of Nogales, Arizona-based SunFed, a successful and tech-driven fresh produce company that provides the highest quality fruits, vegetables and dry goods that are produced by growers in over 30 locations, including 15 Mexican regions. SunFed currently operates in Arizona and Texas, is one of the top importers of squash into the U.S., and has a strong reputation for being an industry leader in both technology adoption as well as food safety practices.
Founded nearly 30 years ago by original owners Warren Mizokami and Danny Mandel, SunFed is now run by Craig Slate, who became CEO in 2017. Today, SunFed is a full service food distribution and wholesale business with a 65,000 square feet warehouse and state-of-the-art processing facilities. SunFed’s warehouses also have photovoltaic solar panels, which offset 85% of their total energy consumption. In addition, SunFed has adopted other sustainability initiatives like using modified atmosphere and humidity packaging to extend shelf life, launching organic-certified growing programs, and introducing their “Almost Famous” brand that repurposes and resells cosmetically imperfect produce to reduce food waste. After the acquisition, the business will continue to be managed by its current experienced and mission-driven leadership team.
“We are excited to join the GrubMarket team and welcome the opportunities brought forth by GrubMarket’s robust technology platform and strong eCommerce supply and demand network. We are constantly striving to deliver on our promise of Perfect Produce® to our customers throughout North America, and also seek to strengthen and grow our best-in-class grower network. We are thrilled to learn that GrubMarket shares this same goal and has built out such a well-integrated and much-needed eCommerce and technology-enabled platform to bring fresh food to so many important customers across the country. We sincerely look forward to joining the GrubMarket team and to bringing more organic and farmer-direct fresh food to GrubMarket’s end customers,” said Craig Slate, CEO of SunFed.
According to Mike Xu, CEO of GrubMarket: “SunFed is one of the most trusted brands in the nation for squashes and other dry vegetables, watermelons, cantaloupe, and honeydews. The SunFed team has always been a leader in technology, utilizing indoor growing mechanisms and innovative post-harvest practices to improve on product freshness. Craig, Matt, and the exceptional team at SunFed have scaled the company to over one hundred million in annual revenues with a strong profitability profile. In addition, they are mission-driven with strong sustainability and food safety practices, which match GrubMarket’s goals and ambitions. This acquisition enables GrubMarket to further strengthen our presence in key markets like Texas and Arizona, while solidifying our position in the food supply chain industry as a technology-enabler. We are excited to welcome the SunFed team to the GrubMarket family.”
As a part of GrubMarket’s portfolio, SunFed will now utilize GrubMarket’s innovative and proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company’s software-as-a-service platform that provides food industry wholesalers and distributors with seamless financial management, easy-to-use sales and online ordering features, precise inventory management, lot traceability and tracking, grower accounting, and automated routing and logistics tools.
Founded in 2014, GrubMarket is a San Francisco-based food technology company operating in the space of food supply chain eCommerce for both business customers and end consumers, as well as providing related software-as-a-service solutions to digitally transform the American and global food supply chain. Currently, GrubMarket operates in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and British Columbia (Canada), with plans to expand to the rest of the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world.
