A New Way to Graze
It started as a quirky cottage business in a bedroom in England.
Now graze.com has expanded across the pond.
And the company has seen sales take off as Americans latch on to the concept of healthier, home-delivered snacks, selected for them based on a proprietary algorithm that gauges their dietary requirements and food preferences. It also compiles ratings from customers in quick time to create, pack and dispatch new products to their mailboxes.
“We manufacture our own food, we brand it and we also fulfill it to the end customer,” said CEO Anthony Fletcher.
English Roots
Graze was launched in 2008 in England by a team that had previously been part of the European version of Netflix and wanted healthier ways to snack. But instead of sending DVD’s through the mail, their idea was to ship snacks.
It worked. Graze grew into one of the fastest-growing startups in the UK, where it now has 350 employees working out of several locations.
In 2013, graze set up shop in New Jersey and began beta testing its products in December. After two weeks, the company had 20,000 U.S. customers; earlier this spring, the numbers had surpassed 100,000. The company has about 60 employees in the U.S.
“The concept of the idea of graze being a discovery mechanism for new and exciting products – quality products – resonates across both geographies,” says graze U.S. Vice President Paolo Wyatt.
In the UK, graze has a strong family following. In the U.S., it’s doing well among urban working women, though as word spreads, the customer demographic broadens.
“It’s great to know there’s customers all around the country enjoying the product,” says Wyatt. “I was in New York yesterday at an office just talking to two of our customers. We went over there to talk with them and get some direct feedback.
“It’s amazing how engaged they are in the product … how they get excited by that graze box arriving in their office or at home.”
Special Delivery
The model works like this: For $6, which includes shipping and handling, subscribers order personalized snack boxes and have them delivered to their home or workplace on the regular basis of their choosing. Each box contains four individually packaged and portioned combinations, which are packaged and packed by the company with ingredients it sources from outside vendors.
Graze offers about 90 snack choices, including gluten-free options. Among them are an array of selections with dried fruits and vegetables – some with various combinations of dried fruits, others in mixes with nuts
“We’re finding Americans are very keen to increase their intake of fruit,” Fletcher said. “What we’re seeing in the market as a whole as vegetable snacking, we’re really seeing that coming through as a trend.
“But a lot of innovation still needs to be developed on how you develop vegetables being delivered to customers in that format.”
Graze’s savory selections include a Vegetable Power snack of black pepper cashews, spicy chickpeas and edamame beans; Texas Corn, with corn chips, salsa almonds, roasted corn and jumbo chili corn; and Veggie Sushi, featuring ginger and nori peanuts, Japanese seaweed rice crackers and wasabi-coated peas.
Dips and Dippers pair snacks like shortbread, pretzels and tortilla chips with salsas, sauces and chutney. An item called flapjacks that has been strong in England has also proved popular in the U.S., where graze did modify some of its other offerings that were more suited to the UK palate. Made with fruits and/or seeds, they have the look of granola bars.
“The flapjacks are something I think almost all of our customers love,” Wyatt said. “We purposely didn’t change the name of the product. We wanted to keep some of our roots but also we don’t think there’s an equivalent in the U.S.”
In the U.K., graze has produced a box aimed at children.
“It has a product like porridge in it – like oatmeal,” Fletcher said. “There are a number of categories in this business model that could be applicable to in the U.S.”
The company tried shipping fresh fruit in the United Kingdom, and in fact holds a U.S. patent on packaging technology that would support shipping such products.
“We found that … things like pineapple, apples, grapes – there definitely were some limitations on what you could send,” Fletcher said.
Besides, sometimes customers didn’t want to receive fresh offerings – if, for example, they were away or otherwise unable to use the product soon, while it was still good.
“What we found was that the customer felt imposed upon,” Fletcher said. “Sometimes they didn’t want it, and it placed them in a real quandary.
“What we’re about is something which fits conveniently in your mailbox, which comes very frequently. We’re less about delivering grocery staples.”
The fact that graze boxes are mailed also makes them unique, Wyatt said. Given the harsh winter across many parts of the U.S., the company paid close attention to delivery times and patterns and modified its shipping practices when needed.
“We have a program called ‘the brain’ that pulls in lots of data on performance of the boxes … and tweaks our postage strategy to achieve best possible service,” Fletcher said.
Wyatt adds that receiving the box via mail is part of graze’s appeal.
“The joy of getting mail has been lost across the U.K., and the U.S.,” Wyatt said. “I think the experience of getting a graze box in the mail is something people appreciate. It’s not a bill, it’s not a boring circular.
“And there’s the excitement about which products you’ve got. It’s very simple.”
Kathy Gibbons, contributing writer
