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Japan’s Send, data-driven food distribution platform for restaurants, secures $4M

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Planet Table, a ‘food tech’ innovator specializing in food delivery using big data, announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised about 400 million yen (about $4 million) from SBI Investment, Genuine Startups and Mistletoe. Details such as the payment date are kept private. This follows their previous $850,000 funding back in a series A round in January of this year. The company unveiled, together with this, that the number of restaurants using their farm products distribution platform Send (released August of 2015) has reached around 1000, with the number of food producers topping out at 3000. The funds secured this time around are being used to establish a new distribution center in Tokyo named “Gate Meguro” whose focus will be to expand the deliverable area, among other things, and also to take on the challenge of constructing a new logistics model. Additionally, Seasons!, a direct trading platform for food producers and buyers that was launched in June as a closed beta for authorized parties only, is set to open to the general public this fall. Over the next year and a half the company plans to increase the number of personnel from the…

The Planet Table team
The Planet Table team

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Planet Table, a ‘food tech’ innovator specializing in food delivery using big data, announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised about 400 million yen (about $4 million) from SBI Investment, Genuine Startups and Mistletoe. Details such as the payment date are kept private. This follows their previous $850,000 funding back in a series A round in January of this year.

The company unveiled, together with this, that the number of restaurants using their farm products distribution platform Send (released August of 2015) has reached around 1000, with the number of food producers topping out at 3000. The funds secured this time around are being used to establish a new distribution center in Tokyo named “Gate Meguro” whose focus will be to expand the deliverable area, among other things, and also to take on the challenge of constructing a new logistics model.

Additionally, Seasons!, a direct trading platform for food producers and buyers that was launched in June as a closed beta for authorized parties only, is set to open to the general public this fall. Over the next year and a half the company plans to increase the number of personnel from the current 20 to about 35.

send-gate-meguro
The Gate Meguro distribution Center

‘Cloudizing’ farm products distribution

Send, the farm products distribution service that carefully connects producers and users by their respective supply and demand data in an effort to solve the problem of food loss, will move toward the next big stage. To read more about the future aims of SEND please refer to the following article written last year.

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The investigation into whether the attractiveness of food made by producers of agricultural, livestock and marine products came across, and if there was a decrease in loss of opportunities for restaurants, etc. for their users, revealed that by a large number of interested parties welcome their distribution service. Planet Table CEO Shin Kikuchi responded thus:

Thanks to all the support, we have moved our center (previously in Shibuya) to Meguro. The one truck we had one year ago has grown to 8 trucks. To evaluate the restaurant side of business, at first there were many items to assemble, or cheap items.

There were a lot of these types of things, but gradually we moved toward never experiencing shortages, etc., and usability. On the producer side, we are getting the same products put into circulation before now bought at 1.2 times the price, one effect being customers have come out pleased with their price per acreage more than doubling.

Now, business is booming and the company receives so many requests, such as the desire by some to increase the meat services, that its finding it difficult to keep up.

send-truck
The outsourced delivery network is set to increase to 10 trucks this year

On the one hand, it takes time and effort for distribution. They posses the physical distribution center and trucks, and also an internet business with the commonly held notion with its forced management could create a contrarian environment, thus making it risky. Naturally, the increase of trucks and delivery personnel creates a heavy burden on management as well.

The construction of a virtual distribution network solves these problems. Kikuchi remarked from when the project was originally launched on whether an Uber inspired model might be a good choice or not. And now, in order to achieve this they are beginning delivery tests of an outsourcing format.

Maybe we can call it a delivery-sharing model. This model answers the problem of how to deliver efficiently in an urban area, so we are testing it with our outsourcers. To pick up regionally produced farm products, we can have them go around to venues such as Michi-no-Eki, or roadside stations across Japan. We’re trying various ideas.

To explain a little, the producers make a crop which must then be collected by a Send team member. It is easy to imagine how the system would be the best option for finding the most efficient route. However, then delivering the goods to restaurants will require some technique.

send-sausages
A dish of Sausages handled by Send. Kikuchi finds most products himself by traveling around Japan.

Kikuchi added:

We will share revenue from the sales restaurants buy from the deliverers. So, it’s not just just delivering goods that have been ordered, but requires presenting the goods to restaurants in an enticing way.

Here the data becomes key. The Send platform owns the data showing what kind of customer each restaurant is and what product they will want and when. So based on this information, delivery people can obtain the knowhow to make attractive propositions.

Production, distribution, and usage–place these three entities into the virtual network and the patform can provide the data to connect them together. Because the virtual network does not stick to any one of these resources, it becomes easy to scale.

On top of this, the team has also prepared measures to reduce loss that occurs at the time distribution. We will report the details of this at a later date.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s Planet Table secures $850K funding deal to boost food distribution platform

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Planet Table, the Japanese foodtech startup behind online food ordering platform leveraging big data, announced on Friday that in December it had fundraised 100 million yen (about $850,000) in a series A round from three Japanese companies including CyberAgent Ventures and Saison Ventures (investment arm of Credit Saison). Financial details, such as equity ratio, have not been disclosed. Planet Table says the funds will be used to strengthen human resources for sales and system development of Send, the company’s online food ordering and distribution platform. The Send platform provides a tiny network connecting farmers producing high quality foods with high-end restaurants. Launched as an online marketplace in August 2015, it has been serving about 200 food producers and buyers. What makes them unique is that they have their own logistics network as well as the online platform. See also: Planet Table connects farmers and restaurant chefs online to reduce food loss in Japan CEO Shin Kikuchi said of their startup: We’ve been primarily collecting information in the food production and restaurant business. The Send platform is not only a profit-making business but also a proof-of-concept project for us. We believe that attracting buyers…

send_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Planet Table, the Japanese foodtech startup behind online food ordering platform leveraging big data, announced on Friday that in December it had fundraised 100 million yen (about $850,000) in a series A round from three Japanese companies including CyberAgent Ventures and Saison Ventures (investment arm of Credit Saison). Financial details, such as equity ratio, have not been disclosed. Planet Table says the funds will be used to strengthen human resources for sales and system development of Send, the company’s online food ordering and distribution platform.

The Send platform provides a tiny network connecting farmers producing high quality foods with high-end restaurants. Launched as an online marketplace in August 2015, it has been serving about 200 food producers and buyers. What makes them unique is that they have their own logistics network as well as the online platform.

See also:

fridges-at-planet-table
Fridges in the Planet Table office

CEO Shin Kikuchi said of their startup:

We’ve been primarily collecting information in the food production and restaurant business. The Send platform is not only a profit-making business but also a proof-of-concept project for us. We believe that attracting buyers and sellers is more important than scaling the business. The platform is in the form of a marketplace, but I think it’s important to provide users with peace of mind and good experiences to find something they can’t find anywhere else rather than allowing them to sell and buy anything at all.

A user base of several hundred companies is not a huge one in terms of an online marketplace. However, users will definitely come to such a marketplace to buy food that is high quality and unique. As a result, they say that the Send platform business is steadily growing.

refrigerated-carrots-at-planet-table
Refrigerated vegetables to ship to restaurants

However, business scaling is critical for every startup, so they will need a much larger workforce to serve more customers, even to just cover the Tokyo metropolitan area. Hence, as a future expansion plan, Kikuchi said that they aim to form a network of partnering companies to expand logistics networks to some regions.

Kikuchi said:

We have been doing the service on a hands-on basis but will gradually shift to a platform-based business model. Customer support will be more important for us to assure quality and handle problems. In that process, I think logistics will also go to the cloud. However, human resources providing high-quality logistics services had not been addressed.

In other words, by integrating information on supply and demand from food producers and restaurants through the platform, such as their preference or quality of food products, it will easily allow users to understand when, where, who requires or produces what kind of food products. This is how the platform will help connect fragmented demand and supply.

They are doing what big retail distributors are doing with point-of-sale systems – but in a more conscientious way in a fragmented market. We will report on when they will announce a full-scale launch of the Send platform.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

Planet Table connects farmers and restaurant chefs online to reduce food loss in Japan

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Planet Table launched an online food ordering platform called Send in August, aiming to connect food producers and restaurant chefs directly. When crop, dairy and livestock farmers register their data into the platform, consumers such as restaurants can directly purchase the farm products, and Planet Table delivers them all at once. For both the food suppliers and consumers, orders are collected together in one lump payment and not processed as individual orders. The service commenced in central Tokyo area (in parts of Shibuya, Minato, Shinjuku, Chuo, Chiyoda, Setagaya and Shinagawa wards) under a specially-approved registration system. According to Planet Table’s founder and CEO Shin Kikuchi, he said that his company charges 20 to 30% of the food cost as a fee for using the platform which handles the sorting of goods and delivery. He eventually will fix the price range depending on the food category. Since its launch back in May of last year, Planet Table has launched The Round Table, a food and agriculture-focused online news media site, as well as FoodQ, a food and nutrition-focused mobile Q&A app for consumers. They had been operating the Send platform as an online…

send_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup Planet Table launched an online food ordering platform called Send in August, aiming to connect food producers and restaurant chefs directly.

When crop, dairy and livestock farmers register their data into the platform, consumers such as restaurants can directly purchase the farm products, and Planet Table delivers them all at once. For both the food suppliers and consumers, orders are collected together in one lump payment and not processed as individual orders. The service commenced in central Tokyo area (in parts of Shibuya, Minato, Shinjuku, Chuo, Chiyoda, Setagaya and Shinagawa wards) under a specially-approved registration system.

send_screenshot
A screenshot of the Send platform

According to Planet Table’s founder and CEO Shin Kikuchi, he said that his company charges 20 to 30% of the food cost as a fee for using the platform which handles the sorting of goods and delivery. He eventually will fix the price range depending on the food category.

Since its launch back in May of last year, Planet Table has launched The Round Table, a food and agriculture-focused online news media site, as well as FoodQ, a food and nutrition-focused mobile Q&A app for consumers. They had been operating the Send platform as an online farm-fresh delivery service in a limited area on a testing basis since April, but it was recently officially launched.

Kikuchi explained:

Our aim is to carefully connect a wide variety of supply with demand. 30 to 40% of farmed products in Japan are not sold on the market, so some people can effectively take advantage of this fact. Malformed tomatoes can be used in pasta sauces for example. All we have to supply in such a case would be fully matured tomatoes that don’t necessarily have the perfect form.

Fulfilling such small requests and availing a new way of using food that has been wasted and discarded in the past provide the basis of this system and the role it seeks to play.

Kikuchi continuted:

We are to be a distribution center for food producers and a direct farm food storage facility for chefs and patissiers. Traditionally, these consumers order the number of tomatoes they want by FAX. We streamlined the process using order sheets to be filled out upfront, so all consumers have to do is enter the number of items they’d like to order.

Restaurants don’t just put things they want into a shopping cart when they want to buy products, it’s not like regular shopping. If the menus have been decided on, then that food list will be used repeatedly, so they just have to create one order sheet to reorder from again.

Shin Kikuchi
Shin Kikuchi, CEO and Founder of Planet Table

The ordering system format of the Send platform was devised by chefs from eight restaurants Kikuchi knows. If the Send platform collected and sent out orders individually then it wouldn’t be very efficient so Planet Table bunches the orders together and orders certain numbers of each product to food producers. Producers then just send the food for a buyer all in one box to Planet Table. Planet Table then takes care of the delivery of these goods to the restaurant which ordered them.

Planet Table has an excess inventory to reduce the time lag from receiving orders to procuring foods from producers, enabling same-day or next-day delivery. By carefully analyzing the trends of orders from each of the restaurants, the company now can prevent a food loss ratio from rising above 3%, but Kikuchi believes that he can lower it further.

In Kikuchi’s phrase, he wants to make the platform a POS (point-of-sales) system for 10,000 restaurants in Tokyo where each customer spends more than 5,000 yen (about $40) for a dinner. By putting individual orders to and deliveries from different food producers together using the platform, restaurants can reduce shipping costs and pay all the bills for ordered foods by remitting to Planet Table once a month.

The company’s approach is very analogue because it owns refrigerators and an excess inventory of foods, which may be far from the recent trend of businesses without their own asset or risk. However, securing food and health safety originally required great care. I believe that wasting foods worth over $90 billion annually in Japan is a huge problem to solve.

Translated by Chieko Frost via Mother First
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy and Masaru Ikeda