GrubMarket has acquired domestic and imported fruit marketer Bengard Marketing Inc.
It’s the sixth company that GrubMarket has acquired in the Los Angeles area since it was founded in 2014 in San Francisco, according to a news release.
Bengard Marketing sells domestic fruit and imported fruit from Chile, Argentina, Peru and New Zealand, and is a major importer of South American cherries and stone fruit on the West Coast, according to the release. GrubMarket describes itself as a “food technology startup operating in the space of food e-commerce (both B2B & B2C) and providing related technologies (vertical SaaS) to solve inefficiencies in the American food supply chain.”
“Bengard Marketing built its success with buyers and suppliers on integrity and honesty,” CEO Broc Bengard said in the release. “GrubMarket shares the same principles we have. Coming together allows us to promote the sustainability of healthy food from farm to fork and grow wherever suppliers and buyers need an honest, hardworking partner.”
Company founder Jim Bengard began importing with a program to bring in Chilean fruit in 1978, and added product from other countries later. His son, Broc Bengard, took the reins of the company in 2010, according to the release, and Bengard Marketing imports more than a million boxes of fruit a year.
Bengard Marketing’s management will remain the same. Grubmarket CEO Mike Xu said in the release that Bengard marketing created a business sector importing fair trade fruit from South American growers who practice sustainability.
“Together, we will strengthen our customer base and extend our grower network to Latin America and Oceania,” Xu said in the release. “Their deep insights of cross-continent food supply chain, logistics and warehouse management will also benefit the evolution of our software technology.”
Bengard Marketing will be using GrubMarket’s proprietary WholesaleWare software, giving suppliers and vendors seamless financial management, user-friendly online ordering and sales, according to the release.
