stay in the loop

Misfits Market - Blog

News

Delivering Value to the Food System—and You

by 42 Comments

How Misfits Market plans to create a new food supply chain and eliminate food deserts in America by 2025

By Abhi Ramesh, Founder & CEO

Think back to the last time you visited the produce aisle of a grocery store. Did you notice how every apple seemed eerily identical? Farmers and gardeners will be the first to tell you that food rarely comes off orchards and fields looking so perfect or shelf-ready. In fact, it’s not really supposed to. So what happens to the rest of the apples from the same crop that aren’t uniformly pretty?

Here’s the distressing truth: Almost a third of what’s grown in the U.S. never even gets harvested because it doesn’t meet the superficial standards of traditional grocery stores. I saw this firsthand on a trip to a Pennsylvania orchard a few years ago when I was apple picking with friends. I noticed the fruit that looked a little different—too big or small, or just a little misshapen—was being collected and placed into storage bins. So I asked why. The reason? It didn’t meet the aesthetic standards that traditional grocers have had in place for decades. Standards that are all about keeping up appearances, not a reflection of nutrition or taste. Donating this supply was rarely an option for this particular grower (nor is it for many small farms). As a result, they scrapped almost 20,000 apples in any given season by their estimation.

Now imagine this happening at every farm across the country, across every variety of fruit and vegetable. That adds up to millions of pounds of delicious food that goes to waste every year when it could be going to a good home. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it? Mine too. That’s why I founded Misfits Market two and a half years ago. To do something about it.

How it started, and how it’s going

A few weeks after that apple picking trip in August of 2018, I built the first Misfits Market site with my self-taught coding skills. Like the produce I was selling, the site wasn’t pretty, but people saw value in it. I also deliberately named us Misfits Market with something much bigger than ugly food in mind: A mission to create food access from the inefficiencies of the food system. I’d make that happen by building the first online grocery store in America to deliver real value by combining affordability, sustainability, and accessibility. 

Within a month, I launched Misfits Market’s delivery business in Philadelphia. I’d go to regional farms on the weekends with a rented pickup truck, fill it with fresh, organic produce that was “misfit” for one reason or another, box it up in my home, and deliver it myself via Uber. Saving up to 40% on organic produce proved popular, as did the ads featuring funny-looking veggies that stopped people in their tracks as they scrolled through Facebook and Instagram. 

My goal wasn’t just to stick to concentrated urban areas. Within a few months, we had expanded to five states and were serving tens of thousands of customers, cutting out the middleman and passing on savings to customers. Many of our initial customers lived in zip codes where no one else delivered fresh produce, especially at the savings we were offering. Even if only 100 people in an underserved location wanted access, we firmly believed—and still believe—that they deserved it, and we built out fulfillment and shipping processes to meet them where they were. 

At first, customers had no choice within their subscription produce box, just a “mystery” assortment of fresh, organic fruits and veggies. But we soon built up a large network of direct relationships with farmers who needed ways to be paid for the excess or misfit food they worked to grow. (Farms don’t always have the infrastructure to send excess items to production facilities or donate to food banks.) Today, customers can have their pick of seasonal produce from dozens of partners committed to fighting waste at scale, like California’s Lakeside Organic Gardens, as well as smaller outfits that don’t always have resources to aggregate supply for quick sale. One of our original suppliers, Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative in Pennsylvania, not only remains a vendor partner to this day but their free box program for people facing hunger has also been a beneficiary of customers’ donations when they want to skip their Misfits Market box. 

Next, we set our sights beyond farm-level waste and onto packaged goods, offering items that were surplus or may have had packaging changes that made them unsuitable for grocery stores. When you shop Misfits Market today, you’ll find a curated selection of more than 250 varieties of organic produce and sustainably sourced groceries—including our newest addition of meats, seafood, and plant-based proteins. And it’s only growing from there.

An opportunity to serve 

As our grocery assortment has expanded, we’ve also devised creative ways to support producers who struggled in the middle of the pandemic. From rescuing premium popcorn destined for movie theaters to pioneering an entire waste recovery program with a bean-to-bar organic chocolate maker, we’re always seeking new opportunities to create a value exchange for both suppliers and consumers. We’re also creating a new upcycled product stream, working with seed-based food company 88 Acres to rescue edge pieces of their tray-baked Seed+Oat Bars, which are served on JetBlue flights, and repacking them for convenient snacking

Even as we’re making strides with our own supply chain, the food system at large is not getting better or more efficient. Uncertainty around supply and demand means that growers and producers are forced to take on more risk and potentially get stuck with excess product that threatens to go to waste. That’s because grocery stores are now requiring farmers to commit to growing much more than normally planned so they’re insulated from the supply shocks that led to empty shelves during the pandemic. Similarly, meat producers are asked to double down on the supply of the most popular cuts, leaving less popular cuts with no easy outlet or consumer base. 

And yet, with the glut of food on the market, food prices have continued to rise 2-3 percent a year on average for the past 20 years. In 2020, they went up a whopping 3.9 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with more people eating at home last year. Consumers bear the brunt of this inflation. People in food deserts suffer. And lessons continue to go unlearned. 

My vision is for another path, one that can solve for rising costs and the limited reach of food in the current system, and that can drive value directly to suppliers and consumers. 

What powers us and where we’re going next

It’s simple: We are obsessed with creating the new food value supply chain. We lead with technology, put our producers front and center, and focus on our reach into communities where consumers have traditionally faced limited choices. This obsession with creating a new, improved food supply chain is what helps us stay committed to our mission of delivering high-quality products at a good value. 

Because of our focus on sustainability, accessibility, and affordability, growth oozes out of every part of the business. We’re hitting some big milestones this week alone. Our first group of customers received quality meats, seafood, and plant-based proteins in their boxes on Monday, and today we’re expanding into Washington and Oregon, making our delivery map truly bicoastal. Just two more steps toward our goal of expanding into every major grocery category and distributing across every underserved area nationwide. 

To continue to make an impact, we’ll be doubling our team (currently more than 1,000 employees) by the end of the year to fortify our product and operations teams and ensure the best possible experience for customers. We’ll also be making some big investments in tech that continue to optimize our logistics and drive the growth of our business. It’s not enough to be able to move fast. Our machine has to be powered by some pretty impressive logistics and fulfillment tech under the hood to operate at scale with a growing assortment. If you had any doubt about our ability to scale, consider that in the first four months of 2021 alone, Misfits Market has rescued the same amount of food as we saved in all of 2020.

Giving back will also remain core to our mission. Last year, we donated more than 120,000 pounds of fresh food to communities in need. Misfits Market partnered with Philly-based Sharing Excess on a food scholarship program to reach under-resourced students in the Greater Philadelphia area. Our team has also worked with Wellness in The Schools to get food-insecure families in Camden, NJ set up with fresh food delivery on a weekly basis. Finally, in 2020 and into this year, we’ve sponsored community fridges throughout the Northeast in communities that face food insecurity to keep them supplied and well-stocked with fresh produce. We care so much about access because we know that it’s the key to healthier communities. “Prescriptions” for healthy foods might save more than $100 billion in healthcare costs, according to one new study, but it’s also about a more equitable distribution of resources to all. That keeps us laser-focused on our goal of eliminating food deserts in America by 2025.

I remain just as committed to providing affordable access to quality foods today as I was when I hand-delivered our first boxes back in 2018. As we evolve, it’s the same mission: give everyone access to quality food, delivered in an affordable and sustainable way. It’s just a little bigger than it was before. 

If you haven’t yet joined us, I invite you to come along for the ride. It’s a pretty gratifying and delicious one. I’ll even give you an incentive: 30% off your first order through April 30, 2021 with code GROW30.

Easy Changes to Make at Home for Earth Month

by

Did you know? An estimated 33% of produce* is either unharvested or left behind in fields each year, and that’s just the beginning of our national problem with food waste. In 2019 alone, 931 million tons of food* went to waste at the home, retail, and restaurant level. Food waste is responsible for as much as 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.*

We’re doing our part by rescuing goods that might otherwise go to waste and giving produce and packaged goods a good home. Here’s how you can do yours.

Follow FIFO

That stands for First In, First Out. Consume foods in the order they were purchased (first in), using the oldest items soonest (first out) and the newer foods later (last in, last out). Many restaurants use FIFO to track inventory, improve food safety, and reduce costs. Households have caught on, following FIFO to eliminate food waste and save money.

Get into pickling

If you struggle to eat up your veggies before their peak, you can save time, money, and food waste by pickling produce. Onions, cabbage, and even cherry tomatoes can be pickled and used for weeks longer than they’d otherwise last. Learn more.

Embrace the freezer

If pickling isn’t your jam, consider freezing everything else. Carrot tops, citrus, berries, onions, avocados, and even garlic can find a place in the freezer to be used at a later date. Learn more.

Reconsider food scraps

Chances are you could be getting even more out of the peels, stems, and leafy tops that most people discard. Think: pesto, homemade veggie stock, infused drinks, and even delicious snacks. In fact, by rescuing those bits and pieces from the compost bin, you could actually be saving serious cash too. Learn more.

Build the perfect pantry

Take stock of what you’ve got and move items that have the most recent expiration dates to the front of your pantry. Then, buy what you like with a mix of complementary pantry staples and fresh produce that pair well together so nothing goes to waste. Learn more.

Rethink leftovers with meal planning

Instead of struggling to eat the same dinner three days in a row, stretch your produce into more unique meals by cooking a base veggie simply once, then use it in different ways. Like roasted cauliflower: tacos one night, a salad the next, then slathered in buffalo sauce for the third. Follow all of our cook once, eat twice recipes.

Have any good at-home tips for eliminating even more food waste? Let us know in the comments below!

*Sources:

  1. https://www.fastcompany.com/90380088/were-leaving-so-much-food-on-farms-to-just-rot-in-the-fields
  2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/in-one-year-a-billion-tons-of-food-got-wasted-mostly-at-home?mc_cid=f011247eba&mc_eid=c4b7fd9083

Meet Nicole Ledoux, Co-Founder of 88 Acres

by

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month all month long by spotlighting our favorite women-owned and women-founded brands you can support by shopping our Marketplace. This week, we’re chatting with Nicole Ledoux, the co-founder of 88 Acres. Her company makes awesome seed-based products, like granola, snack bars, and seed butters that are manufactured from a zero-waste bakery in Boston.

Read on to learn more about Nicole and 88 Acres’ humble beginnings as a way for her husband to enjoy seed-based snacks.

Who are you and what is your role at 88 Acres?

My name is Nicole Ledoux and I am the CEO and co-founder at 88 Acres Foods. It’s a Boston-based food company and we craft bars and butters with whole seeds and really simple ingredients, really to mimic how you would cook at home. We make everything in our allergen-friendly bakery and our goal is to foster a more inclusive and empowered community with our food.

Can you talk a little bit about the inception of 88 Acres? What inspired you to start it?

My now-husband and co-founder Rob and I met on Match.com, like, a million years ago. And on our fourth date, he almost died at the dinner table when his meal was cross-contaminated with either peanuts or tree nuts, both of which he’s really allergic to. And so, that was my trial by fire to food allergies. I grew up on an 88 acre farm and my family always had a really close connection with food. And I realized after that experience with Rob that there were people who had to treat food like a potential minefield. I saw what he had to go through to stay safe.

Rob wanted to be able to enjoy food the way that I enjoyed it. And so, I started by making him bars, which were the most difficult thing for him to find that were safe [to eat]. We were both training for a triathlon at the time so I started making him bars with seeds instead of nuts, so that we could both share them and eat them. And we worked out with a big community in Boston. And so it started where it was like, “Oh, Rob has these homemade bars, like can we have a bite?” And then it was, “Hey Nicole, could you make us some of those before our next ride?” And then it just kind of grew into this humongous animal that we weren’t really anticipating. We had a lot of interest and support from our workout community and the company was kind of born out of that.

What were you guys doing professionally before you made 88 Acres a full-time venture?

We were not in the food space. I spent the decade before 88 Acres working in finance in different trading and portfolio management roles—a super male-dominated industry. And Rob was in clean tech. So he worked for a number of clean tech startups before deciding to launch 88 Acres with me.

Finance! A very male-dominated world. The CPG food space is very similarly male dominated. And although you are working with your husband really closely, what has it like being a woman in this space that’s very predominantly male?

I think even though it’s still predominantly male, I feel really supported by other female entrepreneurs. That has been really incredible. I feel like I’ve really been able to find my people.

The difference that I’ve seen within the food and CPG space versus finance, for example, is that some of the strengths of being a woman are much more embraced and celebrated within CPG rather than within finance and trading. Like, I know a bunch of moms who are entrepreneurs and I think that the ability to have our kids growing up in our businesses is just something that I never really had… I could never really picture being able to do in finance. I work twice as many hours now as I did, but I have newfound flexibility. Pre-COVID, our now five-year-old’s favorite thing to do was to come to our office after pre-K and help us pack up boxes and bring them to the post office. And I would not have had the ability to do that in finance.

Though 88 Acres was born out of seed bars, you’ve expanded into butters and more. Can you talk a bit about the journey from seed bar to all of the products your team makes today?

When we were making bars in our crappy basement apartment and started to think about turning what was kind of like a side hobby, side hustle, into a real business, we never really wanted to start a bar company. The vision for 88 Acres was really to look around and continually solve problems that people like Rob and I were facing, right? Like, what are all the ways that we want to share food together? And bars were just one aspect of that.

The bar category is incredibly crowded. You walk down the grocery store aisle and you see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bars, but we had really carved out some white space in that there weren’t any multi-allergen-free options within bars. And there really weren’t any companies that were building products or their brand platform on seeds. By really celebrating what’s in our foods rather than constantly talking about what’s not in our foods, it allows us to really elevate the individual ingredients. And seeds are these incredible super food powerhouses where we can really celebrate the seeds rather than talking about how our products don’t have nuts or don’t have something else in them.

So bars were an immediate problem that we needed to solve for ourselves. But butters came out of a weekend conversation that I was having with Rob, where I was joking around with him that I gave up my beloved almond butter for love. And he’s like, “What does that taste like?” And it’s like trying to describe what the color blue is to like so meone who can’t see. So I was like, “It’s thick and it’s creamy. It’s got a lot of protein in it.” And through that conversation, I realized that Rob had never had any [nut] butter at all. The plain sunflower butter that was currently on the market looked and smelled [too much] like peanut butter and he just couldn’t get over that. And I was like, “You know what? I bet you I can make you a seed butter that you would love.”

So, I went back to the kitchen and [followed the] same process we had for the bars: Pulled out the seeds and started roasting them. The first batches of seed butter literally went in glass mason jars, and as someone in his early 30s trying any butter for the first time, it was really cool.

That is really cool!

Yeah. So, we were just, kind of like, picking our way through all the problem areas that we currently face and that is our research and development process. Sometimes it comes from pain points that our customers are seeing. We try to talk to as many people as possible and get an understanding of where the different opportunities are.

What advice would you have for women specifically who are trying to start their own companies, become entrepreneurs, just enter this CPG space?

I would say for moms specifically to not get sucked into the whole mom guilt or let that stop them from launching a business. We have two kids who have literally grown up in our company. Some of their favorite people in the whole wide world are people on our team and there’s like nowhere that they would rather be. And so, I think that it’s easy to get sucked into this whole, like, “I can’t work too many hours” or “I can’t do something because it’s not going to be right for my kids.” And I think that kids are super flexible and they want to be where you are. And I love the fact that our five-year-old can talk about, like, something being on sale or a new product. So that’s my advice for moms. And I think just for women in general, everyone has a superpower and it’s all about identifying what yours is and learning how to leverage that.

I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at. That’s what makes Rob and I a really powerful co-founding team. He’s good at all the things that I’m not good at. And I’m good at all the things that he’s not good at. And we celebrate those weaknesses. And I don’t dwell on the fact that I have things that I’m not good at.

I think that also ladders back into what you were talking about earlier about community. You’ve found this community with other women entrepreneurs, and it sounds like some of your advice would be to build up a community around you. And just building up that support system.

Yeah, totally. It was really lonely and isolating when we first decided to start the company. And I realized that my entire previous network had to be rebuilt. I still love and respect all the people I used to work with but I needed to build that community here within food and CPG. And I see younger people who are starting out in this industry and they’re trying to figure everything out on their own. And we have learned more and have been able to avoid more pitfalls and disastrous outcomes because we’ve been able to build this amazing community.

And women want to help other women. And people within the food and beverage space want to help each other as well. So I completely agree with you about building a community around you. You can pick up the phone and ask all kinds of questions and finding people who are going to give really honest feedback and answers is absolutely critical to success, no matter what industry you’re in.

Finally, and maybe this is non-existent, when you’re not managing 88 Acres with your husband, what do you like to do in your free time?

Let’s see. This answer probably would have differed depending on when in our lives you asked this. Rob and I used to love to travel. Obviously for many reasons, we haven’t been able to do a lot of that lately, but we recently bought a house and it’s a fixer upper. So I have been really enjoying learning how to do woodworking and a bunch of projects, like how to do a shiplap wainscoting. That’s been really fun and it’s been a great distraction.

What’s In Your Box? January Edition

by

Heat up the new year—jalapeño and serrano peppers, anyone?—with a new mix of rescued organic produce. We’ll start to see fewer hardy squashes this month, but a lot more root veggies. Beets, onions, turnips, carrots. The perfect mix for meal planning as the base of one-pan dinners.

Check out what we’re rescuing this month:

Learn more about our sourcing philosophy here.

Get a sneak peek at what’s in your box each week here.

The Misfits Market 2020 Recap is Here!

by

Now that 2020 is in the rearview (finally!), we’re excited to share how we fought food waste together this year. This is our second-annual recap of all the things we’ve done together as a community (read 2019’s here).

We rescued a lot of food

More than 60 million pounds of produce, in fact! We worked with more than 90 growers in 2020 to bring our customers more than 1,200 varieties of produce. Hear from one of our farm partners at Lakeside Organic Gardens about why they only grow organic:

We formally launched our customization feature

At long last, all customers became eligible to customize their boxes from dozens of types of produce each week. Though mystery boxes remain popular, the majority of you decided to create custom boxes each week.

We made the move west!

In October, we opened our Salt Lake City distribution center, our second-ever facility, to expand into even more zip codes. New states in 2020 included Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Utah, Idaho, Missouri, and Kansas. By the end of December, we served a total of 34 states, plus Washington D.C., with more to come in 2021.

Our Marketplace continued to grow…

Misfits Market has been about much more than just produce for a while. But this was the year we branched out into a slew of new categories, from pasta and bread to plant-based milks and savory snacks. In 2020, we offered more than 900 different Marketplace items from 150 makers. The most popular Marketplace packaged item (#1 in 23 states!) was Minor Figures Oat Milk. As for specialty produce, blueberries topped the list in 30 states.

…which allowed us to form rescue-driven relationships with some awesome partners

Covid-19 impacted many businesses, which gave us the opportunity to create new food waste reduction programs with brands like GrandyOats (granola), Preferred (popcorn), and Taza (chocolate.)

Preferred Popcorn had been supplying movie theaters for over 20 years, then the pandemic disrupted their business in a major way. We were more than happy to step up and offer a place to sell their top-notch popcorn. Read more about our partnership with Preferred at The Washington Post.

It wasn’t just purveyors of popcorn that suffered. Bean-to-bar chocolatiers like Taza Chocolate needed support, too. Watch to learn how Misfits Market pioneered a new food waste reduction program with Taza earlier this year and turned excess into access for chocolate lovers:

We welcomed our chef-in-residence Bobby Flay…

Fall marked the launch of our partnership with the amazing Bobby Flay. (Make sure you follow our Instagram to catch Bobby unboxing his Misfits Market haul and developing delicious seasonal treats that you can make at home!) His Toasted Zucchini Pasta was our most-viewed video of the year:

…and published a lot of recipes

In 2020, we published more than 155 recipes, educational guides, and food-related blog posts to help you make the most of your boxes. Our most popular blog of the year? This guide on How to Build Up Your Pantry and Mix Shelf-Stable Food with Fresh Produce! Even we find ourselves referencing it from time to time.

You also loved our monthly produce guides. (Check out our December guide now!)

We gave back to those in need

It bears repeating: 2020 was a rough year, but that doesn’t mean it was all bad. Thanks to your support, we donated more than 120,000 pounds of food to communities in need in 2020. More than 13,000 boxes were donated by subscribers like you through our new skip donation program. We also helped stock community fridges throughout the Northeast with fresh produce.

To say thank you, we’re upping our referral reward through early January

Know someone who would love to be part of this amazing community we’ve built together? If you refer a friend to Misfits Market and they sign up between 12/28/20 and 1/3/21, you’ll both get 50% off a future subscription box.

Learn more about our referral program, then refer a friend now!

Why We Rescue Packaged Goods at Misfits Market

by

We’re no longer in the business of just selling rescued organic fruits and vegetables. Since November 2019, we’ve had a hand in rescuing hundreds of packaged commodity staples like oil, spices, pastas, and flours, plus cookies, nondairy milks, and even pet food. (And who knows what could be next!)

All of these packaged items are rescues, just like the delicious produce you’ve grown to know and love. But what makes a packaged product worthy of rescuing?

It’s sold in large quantities.

We source canned beans, flour, and other commodity staples when we can buy them directly from the supplier or at a large volume. We then pass those savings onto you.

The packaging is outdated.

If a brand updates their logo or package design, they may still have a large number of existing products that now have outdated packaging. What we rescue might not have the new, sleek packaging you’ll see in the store but it’s the same delicious food.

Or, it’s short dated.

The item has a “best buy” date that’s fast approaching. The food is still delicious, but needs to be eaten sooner rather than later.

The packaging is wrong.

This could mean a missing or incorrect Universal Product Code or UPC. (Those black and white bars on a box or bag of food.) If it’s wrong, traditional retailers can’t sell it—but we can!

The packaging isn’t suitable for retail.

This could mean a number of things, like dented or slightly damaged packaging. Or recently, items that are normally sold in bulk—like granola or coffee—need to find a new home in unbranded packaging.

It’s simply excess. 

A packaged product could be overproduced for a lot of reasons: market changes, forecasting, some innovation on the retailer’s part and the item didn’t sell. It could also be excess bulk product that’s packed in plain packaging, which makes it less-than-ideal for traditional grocery stores.

What’s In Your Box? December Edition

by

The final month of the year doesn’t disappoint when it comes to fresh produce. Hardy winter squashes are still a mainstay, but you’ll start to see a lot more of juicy citrus—Valencia, Cara Cara, navel oranges, plus grapefruit, lemons, and limes—and more surprising varieties of radishes and root veggies like sunchokes.

Get a look at all of the delicious fruits, veggies, and herbs you might see in your boxes this month:

Learn more about our sourcing philosophy here.

Get a sneak peek at what’s in your box each week here.

The Misfits Market Gift Guide

by

Foodie gifts, coffee lover must-haves, tote bags, and kitchen staples you can purchase from Misfits Market to give as gifts this holiday season.

Gifting season is officially upon us! Our Marketplace is packed with cool stuff for giving (or keeping), like bags of premium rescued coffee, decadent dark chocolate bars, food storage solutions, and even some brand-new Misfits Market merch. Skip the stores and get deeply discounted foodie gifts, must-haves for coffee lovers, and kitchen items that are more than 50% off during our Cyber Week sale.

Misfits Market Tote Bags and Pin Packs

They’re back! We created enamel pins—pretty cool ones if you ask us—and a brand new stylish Misfits Market tote bag. Plus, with every purchase, we’ll give back to one of our local communities. With every tote bag sale, we’ll donate $4 to Wellness in the Schools—a national nonprofit that teaches kids healthy habits to learn and live better by partnering with school districts to provide healthy scratch-cooked meals, and active recess periods. And, with each set of pins sold, we’ll donate $5 to Philabundance. Philabundance is one of the Delaware Valley’s largest hunger relief organizations, driving hunger from our communities today and ending hunger for good. (And, the tote and pins make for some pretty stylish gifts, too.)

Canvas Tote BagPin Packs
10-ounce natural canvas toteSet of (4) four
19″ W x 14″ H x 5.5″ D1″ hard enamel pins
ARV: $19ARV: $28

Premium Coffees, Teas, and Chocolates

Whole bean and ground coffee, plus some specialty teas, we have a large variety of premium rescued coffee that even the pickiest coffee lover will… love! With the deep discounts on every rescued bag, your giftee can have a different-tasting cup of coffee every day of the week. Dark and molasses-y. Light and buttery. Smooth and infused with nitrogen. The list goes on. Plus, some chocolate for good measure. Bars, barks, and truffles.

Collapsible Cups

The Stojo Collapsible Pocket Cup features a simple way to shrink your drink carrier down to just two inches. Even if you’re not heading out much these days, this silicone cup in a deep blue color makes carrying hot drinks (or soups and oatmeals) from room to room easy and stylish. Plus, it’s environmentally friendly and dishwasher safe.

Insulated Bottles

Welly’s sleek, earth-friendly water bottles are made with bamboo, a renewable resource. The Tumbler features triple-walled vacuum insulation and a wider mouth, which means you can use it for much more than just water. We’re talking coffee, smoothies, or chilling al fresco cocktails. Best of all, Welly donates at least 1% of sales to clean water projects worldwide, ensuring clean access for those who need it most.

Food Storage

We’re obsessed with good-looking food storage, like these stylish bowls and ice cube trays from W&P. The Porter Plastic Lunch Bowl features a snap-tight silicone strap to keep your lunch secure while you’re on the go. (From the kitchen to the living room that is.) Even if we’re not very on the go these days, Porter bowls have a way of making leftovers look much more appealing. And Peak’s sturdy-yet-flexible silicone trays make top-notch ice. The handy lid keeps out freezer funk, which means you get a cleaner-tasting cube. This large, slower-melting size is ideal for cocktail hour.

What’s In Your Box? November Edition

by

Another month, another batch of rescued organic produce that just might make it into your boxes. It may come as no surprise, but root veggies take center stage this November. Get ready for turnips, radishes, carrots. Even the mega-sized rutabaga. Plus, a bigger variety of apples, pears, and fall fruits like persimmons and pomegranates.

Get a look at all of the delicious fruits, veggies, and herbs you might see in your boxes this month:

Learn more about our sourcing philosophy here.

Get a sneak peek at what’s in your box each week here.

Chef Bobby Flay Is Here to Help

by

We couldn’t be happier to welcome chef Bobby Flay to the Misfits Market crew! He’s going to be our chef-in-residence helping us help you. Bobby’s been a big fan of Misfits Market for a while now, so he knows exactly how to make the most out of each box. Just watch as he unboxes a subscription produce box and a handful of Marketplace items, then immediately goes into game-plan mode thinking up what to cook. A pro being a pro. 

Each month, we’ll be getting culinary know-how, recipes, and words of wisdom straight from Bobby’s home kitchen. Here, in the first installment, Bobby’s already dishing out some early Thanksgiving prep tips because practice makes perfect. Plus, you’ll hear how to make a savory tahini compound butter, what to do with celery root, and why no one should be sleeping on celery. 

Get to know Bobby

He’s likely a familiar face from Food Network hits like Boy Meets Grill, Beat Bobby Flay or Throwdown! with Bobby Flay. Or maybe you know him from his award-winning restaurants (he’s been in the game for more than 25 years!) in New York City, Las Vegas, and beyond.

These days, though, Bobby’s been all about helping home cooks make the most of what they’ve got on hand. His Instagram is packed with videos that offer new ways to get inspired in the kitchen. And now he’s ready to do the the same for you and your Misfits Market box. “Misfits Market is all about making high quality produce and pantry items affordable and accessible. It’s a mission I can stand behind and I am thrilled to be joining the family,” he says. “I’m looking forward to seeing just what we can make together because with Misfits Market supplying the ingredients, there’s no limit to what we can whip up in the kitchen.”

Fast Facts about Flay

The kitchen has been his happy place for decades.
When he was eight, Bobby asked for an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. His parents obliged (along with a G.I. Joe, to “balance things out,” as he’s recounted), and ever since then this New York City native has had a passion for all things food. Shortly after he left high school at age 17, his dad enlisted him to become a busboy at famed New York restaurant Joe Allen. A year later, he enrolled in culinary school and his path to success in the food world was forged.

He’s a legit restaurant mogul
After a brief interlude working on the New York Stock Exchange, Bobby went back to the kitchen and at age 26 became executive chef of the critically-acclaimed Mesa Grill. There, he honed his signature Southwestern-inspired style, winning the 1993 James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year and eventually going on to open a host of fine-dining restaurants across the U.S. (The remaining outpost of Mesa Grill in Las Vegas is transforming into Amalfi by Bobby Flay, an Italian seafood concept, in 2021.) He’s also the guy behind Bobby’s Burger Palace, a chain of casual burger joints on the East Coast.

He’s basically the definition of celebrity chef…
Thanks in large part to his Food Network hosting gigs, he was the first chef to get his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Even more impressive: Bobby was the subject of an entire Jeopardy! category, in which all the clues featured him. #lifegoals

…but he’s not the only star at home
His cat, Nacho, an Orange Maine Coon, is an Instagram influencer in his own right with more than 200,000 fans. Worth a follow for the food-inspired name alone, the feed also features cameos from Nacho’s equally-gorgeous feline sister Stella.

Tell us: What do you want to learn from Bobby? Any specific Misfits Market ingredients that always stump you in the kitchen? Leave a comment and your request may be covered in a future video!