Online Food Marketplace Launches in New Orleans, Connects Consumers to Vendors Through High-Tech Operation

Good Eggs was built two years ago in order to meet the goal of supporting local food systems across the country. The startup is an Etsy meets farmers market–connecting consumers to farmers and food vendors through a virtual marketplace.

Good EggsFounders Rob Spiro, Alon Salant and Bob Zoller were interested in the intersection between food and technology. They developed an interest in the local food systems, specifically about how you use the power of technology to support them.

Good Eggs delivers locally sourced organic meats, produce and other goods to consumers. It started out providing its powerful software to local vendors but saw they needed help with distribution and decided to build the delivery system itself.

The virtual farmers market began in San Francisco as a conduit for people to buy direct and now has around 200 vendors on the site there. The city now expects thousands of orders a week out of the 10,000-square-foot warehouse soon.

“San Francisco is unique to both food and tech,” said Tess Monaghan, one of the team members in New Orleans. “Something that works there might not work everywhere.”

The founders realized the model had to work all over the country, yet not all markets have the infrastructure now. They tried to go to Detroit, a city that wasn’t as obvious but still had an emerging startup culture, but the infrastructure wasn’t there.

Despite the risk, Good Eggs expanded to New York. Then New Orleans. “It was the next logical step,” said Monaghan who went to college with a few of the founders. “We have a powerful food tradition in New Orleans. People get what it means to choose local whether in business, food, etc. We also have an awesome emerging startup culture.”

New Orleans will be harder to scale than the first two cities because it’s a smaller market.

Supporting the infrastructure of Good Eggs requires a lot of volume and capacity is limited. With a two-person team and a limited amount of produce that grows in New Orleans in the summer, it will be interesting to see the startup’s growth in the next few months.

Where it works, it works. New Orleans is currently building its portfolio. There are 25 businesses live on the site now working with the pilot marketplace on goodeggs.com/nola. Vendors have the ability to do as much as they want through the innovative platform.

Consumers can order through Good Eggs for pickup or delivery. All of the orders are processed in an 800-square-foot facility.

The goal in New Orleans is to expand product selection so people can use Good Eggs to entirely replace one of their grocery shopping trips each week. The founders value transparency and accountability and are prepared to answer questions about where the food comes from, according to Monaghan. Good Eggs has an open door policy and truly wants to reconnect people to their food.

With no outbound marketing to date, they are now in the phase of building up excitement for those who are already aware of and looking forward to the concept of Good Eggs New Orleans. Good Eggs now targets a wide-range of New Orleanians, including people who are busy and cannot make it to farmers markets such as young people, students and parents.

“Coming towards fall, we will definitely be expanding,” said Monaghan. Good Eggs New Orleans plans to bring on an intern in the next few weeks. As volume increases, the company may need additional workers for fulfillment.

Ready to sign up? Visit goodeggs.com/nola to get started.