KTVU Fox News anchor Bob Mackenzie presented a news story called “Farm Fresh Fruit” about the FruitGuys on August 14, 2008, which gave a brief overview of the San Francisco-based fruit delivery service. In this brief clip, he sets the scene for a typical office environment, where hungry employees quickly grab candy and soda from the vending machine so they can get right back to work. Luckily, there is an alternative to that unsustainable lifestyle. FruitGuys founder and CEO Chris Mittelstaedt envisioned a healthy option, where businesses and schools could have boxes of fresh, locally grown fruit delivered straight to their breakrooms. By partnering with small-scale farmers around the San Francisco Bay Area, the FruitGuys have reduced unnecessary waste from long-distance transportation, supported organic cultivation techniques that sustain the soil, and given local farming operations a larger platform for growth.
To give an example of how the FruitGuys partners with regional farms, KTVU details how Mittelstaedt spent his morning visiting Jelich Ranch in Portola Valley, California. Located in Silicon Valley, the century-old farm is now owned by Phil and Cindie White, who purchased the 14-acre property from the Jelichs in May 2000. Since October 2003, the entire ranch has been certified organic. Mittelstaedt and his team will often visit farms to taste new fruit varieties and check in on the harvest, because that way they can keep their fruit boxes at a dependably high level of quality.
Mittelstaedt’s idea for the FruitGuys may have come during Silicon Valley’s Dot Com era, but the demand for his farm fresh fruit boxes has significantly grown since those rose-tinted days. By 2008, the company had grown to employ over 40 people and deliver fruit across the country, and today their fruit delivery operation is even bigger. That doesn’t mean Mittelstaedt is too important to still deliver the occasional box of fruit, however, so he brought a care package to the Financial Dynamics office with KTVU’s camera crew in tow. Located in Lafayette, California, Financial Dynamics has been a vocal supporter of the FruitGuys, because their employees understand that fruit can make all the difference in health and wellbeing. By helping office workers with their diets, supporting organic farmers, and linking the fruit supply chain in a sustainable way, the FruitGuys have never lost sight of their community.
