“When you look at all those delivery apps, they don’t give a f* about sustainability…especially regarding packaging, waste, sourcing, and logistics”.**

It’s a passionate plea from Tximista Lizarazu, the 28 year-old founder of Fraîche, a company on a mission to make back-to-office dining more sustainable with the help of smart fridges. And you know what? He’s right. On average, over 35% of our total food consumption takes place in the office, which makes for a loooooot of food delivery.

The Brooklyn-based startup launched 4 years ago when founder Tximista Lizarazu left his native France to help Le Pain Quotidien expand the fast-casual bakery across NYC. Focusing on behind-the-scenes logistics and operations, Txim realized very quickly that sustainability and quality needed significant improvements despite the variety of food options here in NYC.

The Fraîche team in front of their Brooklyn headquarters.

Txim created an in-office food solution to cut food delivery costs, time, packaging, and carbon emissions. The first iteration of Fraîche included a refrigerated vending machine that provided quick, nutritious salads & healthy meals that workers could easily pick up their meals from. Txim and team crafted their own salads daily to build transparency and have control over the quality of their ingredients. The team quickly saw success as major agencies like Publicis picked up the fridges to feed their hungry masses until the Pandemic hit in February 2020.

With a pause on all in-office workers, Txim and the team spent the next few years designing and creating their own smart fridges, making their own inventory platform to send crucial information to the team.

“We want to make sustainability more accessible. It’s a scary topic, and if you talk about it with analogies, simple words and images, you make it easier to understand”.

The Fraîche smart fridge stocked with fresh, sustainable meals.

Fast forward to the present, and Fraiche has a hub in Soho where bicyclists pick up curated meals from local NYC restaurants like Daniel Boulud, Botaniste, Springbone, Maman, and The Migrant Kitchen.

“Our model includes delivering to 50-100 people at one time. We deliver by e-bikes in the morning, the packaging is compostable, and we have a zero-waste policy. At the end of the day, everything is given to charity, and the food partners are selected based on sourcing sustainability.

Their partnership with One Love has led to the donation of a staggering 8,000 meals last year, providing companies with a hassle-free avenue to spread goodwill. To learn more about Fraîche’s mission – you can follow their site here!