In Their Words: Don Barnett, Sun Basket's COO

Don Barnett is a panellist on the Educational Breakout Session, “E-Grocery and the Future of Organic Fresh Produce at Retail” at the Organic Produce Summit. OPN caught up with Don Barnett to learn his thoughts on the supply chain with technology, the growing direct-to-consumer marketplace and the challenges and opportunities for those producing organic fresh products.

Don Barnett, COO/CFO

OPN Connect: Sun Basket is a certified organic handler and you strive to source 100% organic fresh produce. How does the organic value proposition drive the company’s growth and vision?

Don Barnett (DB): “Organic produce is central to Sun Basket’s value proposition of Making Healthy Eating, Personalized, Easy, and Delicious.Our customers understand that healthy eating is essential to healthy living.Better access to organic and healthy food means more Americans have access to foods that fit their healthy lifestyle objectives.”

OPN Connect: You said you’re re-imagining the food supply chain with technology that allows amazing food from the best organic farms to reach a wider American audience. Do you consider yourself a food or tech company first?

DB: “It is critical that we balance food and tech capabilities.Establishing a solid food supply chain is essential good food business.This is simply a ticket to play.It amazes me how many food-tech startups miss the mark right out of the blocks on this point.From here, through impressive data analytics and digital marketing, Sun Basket tackles two very important problems for Americans:ease and personalization. 

From an ease perspective, we have a team of data driven chefs that create amazing recipes that meet a variety of needs.Today, we offer food options like Paleo, Vegetarian, Mediterranean, Gluten free, and heart health, among many others.These offerings can be very challenging for our customers to find in traditional retail shopping.Second, we are connecting individual customer needs with personally tailored solutions.By analyzing customer provided goals, and merging with their actual choices, we are able to offer personalized meal solutions similar to how Netflix personalizes video content.”

Sun Basket offers dairy-free, paleo, lean & clean and gluten-free meal options

OPN Connect: Give us a glimpse of the types of consumers fueling your growth. What are the exciting trends in the organic E-Grocery universe?

DB: “One of the exciting parts of the growth of E-grocery is access to organics.Traditionally, organics are sold in retail.Many of us live in areas where organic options are abundant.Sometimes we forget that much of America doesn’t have the breadth of organic options that we enjoy here on the west coast.E-commerce is expanding the platform for organics into parts of the country that haven’t previously had great organic food choices.”

OPN Connect: As an innovator in the organic food space, what do you see as the industry’s most pressing risks and brightest opportunities? What keeps you up at night? What excites you?

DB: “Many of the challenges traditionally faced in the perishable food environment don’t change in e-commerce.Mother Nature will have her say!In addition to these, we are re-inventing the supply chain of how food is moved in commerce.Our traditional supply chain has been perfected over many decades.So, we cannot expect a new e-commerce supply chain to be perfect out of the blocks.The industry needs to be thoughtful and move at a pace that protects the integrity of our products, and in the end delivers a delightful experience to our customers.

As for opportunities, the sky is the limit. The targeted marketing available to on-line providers today is far greater than in the past.We are able to market unique solutions to individual customers.This customization (or personalization) will drive greater loyalty and increase growth.Where in the past it may not have made sense to target a small audience with a unique need or target an audience in an out of the way locale, today we can easily do this.Every day we see more and more creative solutions in the marketplace.I look forward to watching both smart new-entrant entrepreneurs and current players continue to evolve food systems over the next few years, and believe organic providers are positioned perfectly.”

Sun Basket sustainable packaging.

OPN Connect: You’ll be speaking on “E-Grocery and the Future of Organic Fresh Produce at Retail” at the Organic Produce Summit. Can you give our readers a sneak preview into your insights on the subject?

DB: “Sure.The internet is known as the great disrupter.The food system is still in the early stages of disruption.When you examine other large categories that have been disrupted, they follow a very consistent pattern.

Consider books and magazines.This was one of the first large categories disrupted beginning almost 20 years ago.Early on, a small percentage of books were purchased on-line.However, every single year since the percentage of books purchased on-line has increased.Today, nearly 50 percentof books and magazines are purchased on-line.Apparel is another example.Its disruption began about 10 years later.Similar to books and magazines, on-line purchases began small and have increased every year.Today, apparel, through the likes of StitchFix, TrunkClub, and many others, on-line sales have grown to roughly 20 percent of the total…and continue to increase each year.

Now, consider food…one of the last major categories to be disrupted.This category disruption started just a few short years ago, and today we’ve seen total on-line purchase grow to about four to five percent of total purchases.In ten years, is it far fetched to think it will grow to 20 percent?Beyond?I don’t think so.”