Rabobank Honors Flashfood at Annual Leadership Summit
Rabobank, a premier global food and agribusiness bank founded 125 years ago and a leading financier of the energy transition, today announced the recipients of its annual prestigious Rabobank North America Leadership Awards. Flashfood, an app for affordable groceries, took home the hardware for the 2024 Rabobank Award for Emerging Leadership in Innovation.
The Leadership Award celebrates a fast-growing young company that addresses issues in the food and agribusiness space in a pioneering way. Flashfood was celebrated among 400 guests on Thursday, Dec. 5, during Rabobank’s annual Leadership Summit in New York City.
“Innovation plays a vital role in feeding and powering the world and we are thrilled to name Flashfood as our 2024 Emerging Leadership in Innovation,” said Caroline Keeley, Executive Director of Global Partnerships at Foodbytes, Rabobank’s innovation arm that helps corporates tackle innovation challenges and drive profits through collaboration. “Flashfood’s technology addresses the massive challenge of food waste, which accounts for 33 percent of our food supply – a mission Foodbytes deeply embraces.”
Rising grocery prices have food inflation on the top of consumers’ minds but this app marketplace connects shoppers with fresh produce, meat and other groceries at up to 50 percent off, lessening the stress on shoppers and their wallets. Founded in 2016, Flashfood offers shoppers nutritious staples at affordable prices and reduces the amount of food going to landfills by partnering with retailers across North America.
“We are absolutely honored to receive this year’s award for Emerging Leadership in Innovation and join this community of exceptional changemakers,” said Nicholas Bertram, CEO of Flashfood. “Our company was born out of the simple idea that we should not be throwing away food in a world where people are going hungry. Flashfood is a platform for retailers to sell surplus food before it’s thrown away, offering fresh groceries at a huge discount and making it easier for shoppers to afford healthy, nutritious food. The beauty of innovation is that it’s not always about building a big, flashy idea, it’s about using the things that are available right now and making something better out of them. That’s what Flashfood offers – building the future of food from waste.”
This year Flashfood released Flashfood 3.0, a redesigned app featuring a fresh interface with shopping features built to make it faster to find, shop and compare great Flashfood deals. The new app offers a smoother experience every step of the way — from creating an account to browsing specific items at local stores — making it easier than ever to save money on fresh groceries.
During the Leadership Summit Flashfood was recognized along with the recipient of the Rabobank Award for Excellence in Corporate Leadership, Lineage, the world’s largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT. The 2024 Rabobank Award for Leadership in Sustainability was presented to The Wonderful Company, one of the leading agriculture, real estate and consumer packaged goods companies in the United States.
The finalists were evaluated by an independent panel of judges representing industry, academia, non-profits, media and the investment ecosystem. Award recipients were selected based on a rigorous set of criteria distinctive to each category.
The Leadership Awards honor large corporations and fast-growing emerging companies that are the touchstone for industry stewardship, sustainability and innovation across the food and agribusiness industry. The awards also recognize companies meeting today’s global economic challenges and answering the critical call for greater social responsibility and community involvement.