GrubMarket Acquires Major Importer of South American Fruits
Food tech and e-commerce company GrubMarket is continuing its streak of acquisitions with Sierra Produce, one of the largest importers of South American fruits directly from growers into the United States.
Founded in 1996, Sierra Produce provides a variety of fresh fruits to a wide range of business customers, including grocery stores, supermarkets, online grocers and others across the United States. It has long-standing relationships with many local growers in South America, including Chile, Argentina, Peru, Columbia and Mexico. Sierra Produce handles direct communication with the growers at farm level for timely harvest information. Its products include blueberries, grapes, cherries, pears, kiwi, and a variety of citrus and stone fruits. The company also boasts full repack/restyle capabilities, quick turnaround times, full-service delivery options, flexible transportation, ad planning and marketing support.
After the acquisition, Sierra Produce will continue to be managed by its current leadership team. It will also be able to use GrubMarket's proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company's software-as-a-service platform providing food industry suppliers and vendors with financial management, easy-to-use online ordering and sales, precise inventory management, and engaging customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
"We are excited to join the GrubMarket team and welcome the opportunities brought forth by GrubMarket's robust technology platform and network," said Roland Berndt, CEO of Sierra Produce, which has offices in Orange, Calif., and Swedesboro, N.J. "We are constantly striving for the best customer service and committed to meet the needs of all our growers and customers. We are thrilled to learn that GrubMarket shares this same mission. We sincerely look forward to joining the GrubMarket Team and bringing Sierra Produce to the next level of success."
According to Mike Xu, CEO of GrubMarket: "Sierra Produce is one of the biggest providers of South American fruits in the United States. It sources from financially sound growers who manage their own proprietary farms. Its relationships with growers are long-standing and, in many cases, exclusive. These diverse relationships in the Southern Hemisphere provide a consistent flow of products to our growing customer base. The top-notch team at Sierra Produce has quite a few business geniuses who are hard to find elsewhere in this food space, and is a true value-added partner for their customers and producers. This acquisition enables to GrubMarket to further deepen its software domain knowledge in working with South American growers and strengthen the integration between local and import capabilities supported by our software. "
Following its $90 million of financing in an oversubscribed Series D round in 2020, GrubMarket has been keeping busy with a multitude of acquisitions. It started 2021 with the acquisition of Bengard Marketing Inc., a provider of domestic and imported specialty fruits directly from sustainable growers in Chile, Argentina, Peru and New Zealand, as well as the United States. In March, GrubMarket acquired Texas-based RJ Produce Inc., a produce wholesaler that has established relationships with growers directly from Mexico and domestically. It later completed the acquisition of Texas-based Jana Food, a full-service provider and a key sourcing channel for halal and ethnic protein, serving the broader Dallas-Fort Worth area. Additionally, just last month, GrubMarket acquired Vaccaro & Sons, a produce and diary provider that distributes to a wide variety of businesses throughout the St. Louis area.
Founded in 2014, GrubMarket is a San Francisco-based food technology company operating in the space of food e-commerce for both B2B and B2C as well as providing related software-as-a-service solutions to solve inefficiencies in the American food supply chain. Currently, GrubMarket operates in California, Washington, Texas, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Missouri and Massachusetts, with plans to expand to other parts of the country.
