封印季节 now top US locally grown food brand
由太阳城娱乐的学生于2015年创立, the flash frozen produce company creates new markets for family farmers.
帕特里克的伴侣’s experience working with a food waste diversion program at the Carrboro Farmers Market as a student at Carolina inspired the concept for 封印季节这是一家速冻食品公司. Nearly a decade after the 2015 launch of the Carolina student-led startup, 封印季节是第一. 1 .美国本土食品品牌.S.
“Farmers would have extra bins of tomatoes or strawberries left over, and they needed a place for that produce to go because it wouldn’t last until next Saturday’s market,”马特尔说。, 联合创始人兼首席执行官. “We saw an opportunity to preserve that extra crop by freezing it and giving consumers access to it year-round rather than just the four-week strawberry season. The company was a way to facilitate that win-win for farmers and consumers, 它演变成更多的东西.”
Today, 封印季节 distributes its products to 遍布36个州的6000个零售点. In 2023, its grocery story customer count and dollar sales both grew by approximately 20%. The company sources produce and operates across six U.S. regions (Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Southeast).
“Our distribution strategy is to be locally grown, locally frozen, locally sold,师傅说。. “We’re making locally grown food easy for our grocery store partners to merchandise. 对于终端消费者, 我们正在制作更高质量的产品, locally grown product available that has a story to it, has a lower carbon footprint and tastes better than the other ‘cardboardy’ frozen food on the shelf.”
The idea for 封印季节 began in a public health entrepreneurship class taught by professor 爱丽丝安默曼, director of the UNC Center for 健康 Promotion and Disease Prevention. Inspired by a group project on food waste and access, 奥斯兰丹妮娜, 一个在中心的人, teamed up with Carolina graduate student Will Chapman and undergraduates Mateer and 亚历克斯Piasecki 把这个概念变成一个公司.
最初的资金来自 卡罗莱纳的挑战 at UNC 凯南-弗拉格勒商学院 and other competitions, and the startup’s first offices were in the CUBE accelerator on campus, 紧随其后的是 教堂山发射场 市中心.
快速冻结的“中心农场”
封印季节 uses flash freezing technology — a frigid blast of air delivered to fruit and vegetables as they travel down a slow-moving conveyer belt — that freezes individual pieces of produce within 24 hours of being harvested.
随着业务的扩大, the team made a strategic shift from a central freezing location to flash-freezing facilities set up on hub farms. “农场负责所有的种植和冷冻工作, 我们可以把所有的时间都集中在销售上, 分销和营销,师傅说。.
封印季节的作品 本地农民网络 across the country to help them diversify sales. “We’re creating a larger market for local farmers by opening the frozen channel for them,皮亚采斯基说, 联合创始人兼首席运营官.
适合小农, 封印季节 is a diversified sales channel or an option for when the unexpected occurs, 就像保险单一样. “如果周六的农贸市场对他们来说很大, 他们还有星期一, 周二, 周三和周四要考虑一下,皮亚采斯基说. “或者有恶劣的天气, 这些水果保存不了多久, 所以农民们想要捕获他们能捕获的任何东西. For farmers who almost look at us as a type of crop insurance, 我们灵活, transparent and consistent — and they can rely on us to pay a fair price.”
