New Covent Garden Market based business Oddbox is celebrating ten successful years of rescuing ‘wonky’ and surplus fruit and vegetables and delivering them directly to the public.

Oddbox has been based at the Market’s Food Exchange building for the past six years, however the connection with traders at Nine Elms goes back to the founding of the business in 2016.

“Ten years ago, we were delivering boxes from our car around Balham but, even then, New Covent Garden Market was part of our story,” said Emilie Vanpoperinghe, CEO and co-founder of Oddbox along with Deepak Ravindran (pictured below).

“We were too small to buy directly from growers, and no single grower could supply everything we needed,” she added. “We were lucky to work with several wholesalers at the Market who were happy to deal in small volumes, and that's what got us off the ground.”

Collecting surplus fresh produce along with ‘wonky’ fruit and vegetables rejected by supermarkets for being an unusual shape or size and delivering directly to customers’ homes on a subscription model was a risky venture, but one that Emilie and Deepak were sure they could make into a success.

“For the last six years, we've proudly called NCGM home,” said Emilie. “We moved in about three weeks before the pandemic, so our first few months as tenants weren't quite what we'd pictured, but we've more than made up for it since. We've partnered with other Food Exchange tenants, and we tested our cooking pastes at Mission Kitchen [also based at the Food Exchange].”

These days most of the fruit and vegetables rescued by Oddbox comes from surplus produce, rather than being misshapen. “If growers have excess produce for their supermarket order, for example a bumper harvest due to the warm weather for instance, that produce risks going to waste as the supermarkets can't take it,” explained Emilie. “We work with more than 110 growers – both in the UK and overseas – to provide a flexible, reliable market for perfectly edible fruit and vegetables.”

Oddbox has also expanded its offer to include supermarket best sellers such as bread, eggs, store-cupboard staples and more, that can be delivered alongside their fruit and vegetable offer.

What’s more, Emilie says Oddbox’s partnership with New Covent Garden is only getting stronger, as the business continues to expand. “The Market has the same generous, resourceful community spirit Oddbox was built on, and we're excited to keep growing with its tenants over the next ten years."

Find out more about Oddbox here.