“I asked him about it and he said they were misfit apples that he couldn’t sell through traditional retail channels because they were misshapen or had a little dent or scar.
“For me, launching Misfits Market was about access and affordability,” Ramesh said.
That leads to a direct, freshness benefit for customers who, instead of buying a product that has made multiple stops along a route that can include long-term cold storage, get produce that was in a field or orchard one week and on a customer’s doorstep the next week, with only a single middle agent in the mix, he said.
Misfits Market has expanded beyond its original mission to bring ugly but affordable fresh organic products to its clients, and its offerings now also include meat and fish, plant-based proteins, baked goods, pantry goods and a newly added category, dairy products.
But don’t expect to be scrolling through page after page of options as a Misfits shopper.
One recent example was 100,000 cans of imported olive oil.
Right now, Misfits Market features a selection of about 500 products and is aiming to grow to offer a couple thousand.
“No one really needs to spend three hours at a store browsing through tens of thousands of items to find what they need,” Ramesh said.
Once a week, once a month or once in a while are all options, but so is the ability to have a regular standing order delivered every week.
Misfits Market customer lists and order volumes both grew at a 500% clip last year, and the company recently went live in the biggest consumer market in the country — California.
And, the company is cutting the ribbon this week on a mammoth, 200,000-square-foot facility in West Jordan that will be the base of operations for moving groceries to customers in the entire Western region of the country as well as some of the Midwest, Ramesh said.
The West Jordan operation already has put over 150 new employees to work, none of whom are making less than the company minimum hourly wage of $15.
Misfits Market also received a post-performance tax credit package last year from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity that could earn the company about $430,000 in rebates.