Agriculture and technology are things that don’t usually go together. However, Alon Salant and Rob Spiro at Good Eggs have found a way to bring organic local food and technology together in an innovative way.
Eating healthy and organic food has been a bit of a craze recently, with people wanting to move away from factory-farm produced meat, and pesticide-doused plants. Local organic food has begun to appear on peoples’ radar again. Despite the benefits (and there are many) to organic food, it is not easy to shift to an organic diet. Even finding the food might be a hassle.
Good Eggs, however, is seeking to make that shift a little easier by allowing consumers of organic foods to find with ease producers of these foods.
Good Eggs was founded by Alon Salant, Rob Spiro, Randy Puro, Bob Zoller, and Greta Caruso in 2011 in San Francisco. The group seeks to make this shift to healthy food easier. Salant and Spiro, the CEO and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) are not newcomers to the food or to the technology industries, having a foot in each of these traditionally separate fields. Salant, who previously co-founded and ran Carbon Five, a website building company, produces homemade lemon marmalade. Spiro was formerly a project head on Google+ and used to help raise chickens and tomatoes before entering the tech world.*
Good Eggs is self-described “hub to bring people and food closer together,” but this is not all that it does. It allows consumers to find local delis, bakeries, farmer’s markets, and caterers that sell organic foods — no more hunting and pecking for organic food is needed. The site also allows sellers of organic foods access to advertising. Local bakeries and shops which sell locally produced, organic foods, can apply to have their business advertised on the website, allowing the word to spread about their products and services in the area.
Not only that, the businesses are given their own pages on the Good Eggs site, where orders can be made with a few clicks. With ease, a consumer can have fresh, local food on their table and encourage local economic growth. Each page is accompanied by information about the owner, their business and Facebook information. The consumer can not only shop locally, but can reach out to the producer.
The project is still in its infancy stages and has not fully launched yet. Good Eggs at the moment is restricted to the San Francisco Bay Area. This launch should be complete by the end of 2012. After this, Good Eggs will be spreading to other cities across the country, and is actively hunting for community leaders for Detroit, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Portland, Oregon.
This story as originally published misstated the previous careers of CEO Alon Salant and CTO Rob Spiro. Salant previously co-founded and ran Carbon Five, a website building company, and Spiro was formerly a project head on Google+. Go to the corrected section.
Elaine Rita Mendus is a undergraduate student working on graduating college (someday soon). Her career interests include geopolitics, the Hispanic community, and urban planning. She really wouldn't mind ending up a scriptwriter though...
