Resources

Our investment in Collectiv Food

22 Jul 2021

By Rebecca Hunt

Investment thesis

Traditional food wholesale operates on analogue processes and has proven less than capable of weathering the shocks from Covid-19 and Brexit.

Currently, trucks often serve one buyer and deliver to them significantly under capacity, resulting in huge volumes of unnecessary trucking mileage.

Collectiv Food is an end-to-end food supply chain business connecting food-service operators directly with produce suppliers, enabling food provenance transparency for end-consumers.

The Collectiv team are building the world’s first automated, sustainable and customer-centric food supply service, setting a new standard in B2B food distribution and addressing a market worth £145 bn in Europe alone.

Collectiv’s Operations Management System manages the procurement, collection, aggregation, and delivery of products to their customers. By operating across the entire supply chain, Collectiv Food can unlock price advantages for both buyers and suppliers.

Their unique operating model involves delivering food for multiple buyers into localised refrigerated containers (called “PODs”), drastically reducing the volume of trucks required to make deliveries. Early data shows a reduction in CO2 emissions by up to 50% compared to traditional food wholesale.

Through Collectiv, food producers can reach a new customer base digitally, and achieve greater margin for their products. Food service operators can access multiple suppliers through a single portal, and unlock significant price savings and offer greater transparency to the supply chain enabling buyers to source locally, and to pass provenance messaging onto their menu.The Collectiv model offers full transparency and traceability, with no re-labelling or hiding of producers’ brands. Collectiv’s Producer Sustainability Index provides environmental ratings on each producer enabling better informed decisions for the customer.

Brands already using Collectiv include Big Mamma Group, The Hush Collection, Dirty Bones, Megan’s, Crussh, Butchies, Cocotte, Tossed, and Fresh Fitness Food.

Who are the pioneers?

Jeremy Hibbert-Garibaldi, Founder & CEO, has a deep understanding of supply chain malpractices having spent 7 years at Deloitte in the forensics team (as a management consultant) where he worked with Tesco and Booker, unearthing some of the challenges Collectiv Food addresses today. He also built an artisanal food marketplace startup which enabled him to deepen contacts within the industry. Jeremy has surrounded himself by top tier management with experience across FoodTech: Phil Verey, VP Commercial Operations (ex Commercial Director at Winnow Solutions); Lucas Daw, VP Supply Chain (ex Commercial Director at Gist Future Business Logistics); and Carl Russel, VP Engineering (ex Lead Developer at Bookatable).

Why us?

Collectiv’s ESG focus is closely aligned with our values. Their innovation in delivery aggregation is showing a 38% reduction of CO2 emissions on a per/kg of product basis, as compared to traditional wholesale – a major contribution to carbon reduction that will only increase as the company scales.

Our rich experience with platforms and marketplaces, such as Depop, Secret Escapes, Cazoo and Trouva, will help Collectiv achieve its ambition to become the world’s first automated, sustainable and customer-centric food supply service. Hiring will be a major component of Collectiv’s next iteration which our Talent Team is perfectly placed to feed into.