GrubMarket Gains Edge During Supply Chain Disruptions
GrubMarket has completed the acquisition of Oakland, Calif.-based Oakport Transportation, allowing the food tech company to leverage Oakport's facilities and logistics networks to help overcome ongoing supply chain disruptions.
The coronavirus pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in the supply chain ecosystem, impacting and dislocating shipping routes, ports, warehouses and trucking lines. The shortages in key transportation and logistics resources have driven up transportation costs and ultimately consumer prices.
Oakport provides critical services such as load and LTL volume delivery, refrigerated storage for perishable goods, cross-docking, and load consolidation throughout California, the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and Nevada. Its trucking and logistics services also include storing and shipping items to produce and meat wholesalers, distributors, grocery stores, and restaurants on selected routes throughout the rest of the United States for certain seasonal items.
"Moving perishable products around the country is complex and difficult, and requires predictability and precision,” said Mike Xu, CEO of GrubMarket. “Oakport Transportation is a leader in providing high-quality transportation and logistics services. They are reliable and highly influential in the produce space, and we are excited for them to join the GrubMarket family. This acquisition enables GrubMarket to further strengthen our producer relationships on the West Coast, expand our internal fleets and warehouse capacity, and become a leader in transportation and logistics services for the underserved food producer and supplier market. Together, we will overcome the disruption plaguing the current supply chain and make a greater impact on the evolution and transformation of the American food supply chain industry."
Oakport's transportation and logistics offerings will be integrated into GrubMarket's e-commerce and software product family, which already includes the proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company's software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that provides food industry wholesalers and distributors with financial management, sales and online ordering features, inventory management, lot traceability and tracking, grower accounting, and automated routing and logistics tools.
"We are excited to join the GrubMarket team and welcome the opportunities brought forth by GrubMarket's robust technology platform and network. We are constantly striving to be the most dependable trucking and logistics partner for our customers. We are thrilled to learn that GrubMarket shares this same goal. We sincerely look forward to joining the GrubMarket team and bringing more efficient, reliable and cost-effective logistics services to GrubMarket's suppliers and end customers," said Sal Rizzo, CEO of Oakport.
After the acquisition, Oakport will continue to be managed by its current leadership team.
Founded in 2014, GrubMarket is a San Francisco-based food technology company operating in the space of food supply chain e-commerce for both business customers and end consumers, as well as providing related SaaS solutions to digitally transform the American food supply chain.
The company has grown exponentially this year through numerous acquisitions, thanks to its securing $90 million in new funding in 2020 to drive a growth strategy that Xu believes can someday result in annual sales of $100 billion.
Currently, GrubMarket operates in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Missouri, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and British Columbia (Canada), with plans to expand both nationally and internationally.
