SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Raised Real, the subscription-based, expertly-developed, meal delivery service created specifically for your growing baby, announces $5 million in funding from food delivery giant Schwan’s Company. Raised Real empowers parents to make delicious, wholesome food while taking care of the nutrition, prep and time consuming mess of from-scratch homemade. Raised Real also innovates in several areas of their frozen supply chain, from ingredient sourcing and storage to packaging design and menu diversification to keep things fresher and traceable no matter the season.
Raised Real was founded by a trio of industry veterans including Santiago Merea (former CEO of Orange Chef, acquired by Yummly in 2016), Michelle Davenport (PhD in Nutrition, Registered Dietician) and Steven Kontz (CFO of Orange Chef). Each curated recipe is expertly crafted by Dr. Michelle Davenport, and is aimed to integrate fruits, vegetables, and micronutrients that are most beneficial during a child’s pivotal early developmental stages with the perfect balance of healthy fats, protein, and superfood ingredients.
Advisors to the forward-thinking brand are comprised of industry thought-leaders including Birchbox Co-Founder Mollie Chen, Glossier Co-Founder Nick Axelrod, former KitchenAid Vice President Derek Ernst and TuneIn CEO John Donham.
Driven by a passion for real food, both Schwan’s and Raised Real have founded their businesses on the principle of cornering what consumers crave and bringing that convenience right to their doorstep. Schwan’s investment will support Raised Real’s company growth and the geographic expansion to national distribution by the end of 2017. Currently, Raised Real looks to focus on growth of its in-house team and overall reach in its successful first year of business. Raised Real is growing at a rapid pace, currently delivering nutritious and organic baby food on the West Coast to five states with national expansion brimming on the horizon.
"We want to see a generation of kids raised on real food. Partnering with Schwan's will help reach that goal much faster," Co-Founder and registered dietician Dr. Michelle Davenport shares. "Schwan's shares our vision of producing unprocessed, farm-fresh food and making it easily available to all children. Plus, fundamentally change how busy parents feed their kids. Schwan's trusted expertise and supply chain will be very instrumental as we scale our company."
“Raised Real has taken a unique approach to the baby food category,” says Dimitrios Smyrnios, CEO of Schwan’s Company. “We believe in their vision of delivering the best in homemade baby food, as we were the pioneers of direct-to-consumer food delivery when Schwan’s got its start in 1952. We know how important talking directly to the consumer is and Raised Real is leading the conversational e-commerce movement, connecting with parents through their Baby Food Hotline and social media avenues.”
ABOUT RAISED REAL
Raised
Real is the new-to-market, innovative subscription-based
nutritionally-balanced meal service designed specifically for your
growing baby. Raised Real recipes are developed and curated by a PhD and
registered dietitian with a mix of different superfoods that changes
every delivery. All ingredients are plant-based and sourced from
organically-certified farms. Meant to seamlessly fit into lives of busy
parents, meal prep is as easy as tearing open a meal pack, steaming in
the brand’s own Meal Maker machine, then blending to desired
consistency. Raised Real brings the power and gratification of homemade
baby food direct to consumer. Priced at just $4.75 per meal, the Raised
Real meal requires no preparation and cleanup in 20 minutes or less. The
system is available online with free shipping to CA, OR, WA, AZ, and NV.
