In my next few blogs I'll be profiling a few Austin EcoNetwork Business Partners. The first of these businesses is Greenling. Just over a week ago, I had the opportunity to visit Greenling's headquarters and discuss their operations with their Director of Sproutreach.

 

Operations Overview 

Greenling.com is an online grocery store that delivers weekly. All their products are organic or sustainably-produced.  Roughly 70% of the items they sell each year are produced in Texas. Their suppliers range from small, local farmers to national organic food distributors. Their large, out-of-state suppliers are all USDA-certified organic. However, the small, local producers generally are not certified because USDA certification requires more time and financial resources than they can afford. All new suppliers within a reasonable distance from their HQ receive a personal visit from a Greenling staff member to verify their operations. Suppliers that are too far away for a visit must be USDA-certified organic.

 

Greenling operates out of a small warehouse and office suite in southeast Austin. The Austin warehouse serves the Central Texas area (Austin and San Antonio metro areas). They currently have 50 employees. Monday through Thursday products arrive at their facility and Tuesday through Friday are customer delivery days. All their inventory turns over in one week. Any food items that can't be distributed to customers is fed to livestock or composted.

 

As we walked out of their office area, we first came to their delivery bin cleaning and prep area. The green bins that customers receive each week and all the packing material Greenling puts in the bins is reused and reusable material. The Austin Chronicle provides off-spec, excess, etc. copies of their newspaper which are shredded and used as insulation in the bins. Packing material you find in your Greenling bin can often be taken back to Greenling when you receive your next delivery.

 

We next passed two shiny, metal, industrial-kitchen-sized freezers for meat and frozen foods. Then came the dry goods storage shelves which occupied about the same area as my living room. The walk-in refrigerator we entered next had two compartments: the  tropical storage at 56 degrees for produce like bananas and potatoes and the main cold storage area at 40 degrees for dairy and most other produce. The refrigerated area wasn't much bigger than my master bedroom and bathroom combined. Rollers down the middle of the main refrigerated area allowed for assembly line style bin packing. All products are clearly color-coded to indicate local or non-local. Last we stopped by the three loading bay doors where green bins were stacked in groups, one for each van. Each van holds about 60 to 70 customer orders. A van visits each "neighborhood" of the Greenling delivery area once a week and customers choose a late morning or late afternoon delivery. The fleet for Central Texas is seven vans. They also have a warehouse in Dallas/Fort Worth that employs a fleet of three or four vans.

 

 

Type of Customers Served

Greenling primarily delivers to individual homes, but they also make deliveries for office break rooms. They also serve a few restaurants, but these customers don't place orders online.

 

Unique Features of this Business

Only a handful of online grocers have a similar business model nationwide. Greenling offers almost everything you can find in a grocery store including meat, dairy and baked goods. They also offer "meal kits" that allow you to quickly order everything you need to make a particular dish or an entire meal.

 

Greenling's orders and delivery services are flexible. You can order a group of products in their "local box" and "farmstead box" or purchase any of the items in the "box" a-la-carte for the same price. You can try Greenling one week and cancel the next – no time commitment required.

 

Trends and Goals

Greenling's business is growing. They began serving the Austin area in 2005 and expanded to San Antonio in 2008. In January 2012 they started delivering in Dallas/Fort Worth. In January 2013 Greenling is opening up shop in Houston. They are looking at expanding beyond Texas but there are no specifics yet. The big, "hairy" goal for Greenling is 10 million customers.

 

Local, organic farming in Texas is also a growing business. In the seven years of Greenling's existence, their list of local farm suppliers has doubled. There are even some small, urban farms now.

 

Favorite Environmental Impact Factoids

 

Community Involvement

Greenling donates a portion of their "seconds" to an organization that provides food-assistance to refugees in the Austin-area.

 

Every year during Eat Drink Local Week, Greenling donates 5% of its "local box" proceeds to Austin's Sustainable Food Center. They are also contributing to the center's capital campaign to build a community education facility.

 

Other Interesting Bits

During my conversation with Greenling's Sproutreach Director, we talked about sustainable agriculture. A small-scale farm of an acre is much more productive than an acre of conventionally-farmed land at a large-scale operation. Conventional farms these days use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, usually lack good soil management and are monoculture (grow one crop). You can get a lot of produce year-round out of just an acre in Central Texas by having biodiversity (multiple crops), rotating crops, and using good soil management with natural fertilizers and pest control.