East backs Singapore food surplus marketplace

TreeDots began as a surplus food marketplace for businesses and now also serves consumers through a social commerce platform. It recently expanded into logistics optimization services to help enterprise customers build more efficient supply chains.

The idea is to reduce waste in the food supply chain – including restaurant supply and household groceries – by connecting buyers and sellers of surplus food supply through a marketplace that operates under a group buying model. The company claims to offer buyers up to 90% lower prices than traditional channels.

Initial operations focused on Singapore and an expansion into Malaysia was realized last year. Gross merchandise value has grown more than 4x in the past year.

“Many businesses serving the F&B [food and beverage] industry have struggled during the pandemic, but we’ve been very impressed with the team’s ability to drive exponential growth in the midst of difficult circumstances,” John Kim, a managing partner at Amasia, said in a statement.

Globally, one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. In Asia, this is caused by inefficient supply chains. Aesthetically imperfect food often finds its way to the landfill, even though it’s just as fresh and nutritious as the normal goods found in stores.

These oversupplied foods are incinerated or left to rot, emitting greenhouse gases that are up to 86 times more harmful for global warming than carbon dioxide.

“We realized that a grocery chain might not buy a chicken that’s too big or has a broken bone because it looks funny on their shelves. But F&B outlets don’t care because they will cut it, plate it and make it look nice before serving,” Tylor Jong, co-founder and CEO of TreeDots, added.

“So if they can purchase essentially the same product at prices up to 90% cheaper than alternatives, they are very happy.”

Active Fund and Seeds Capital also contributed to the Series A. Amasia led a seed round in 2019. Previous investors also include Grab Ventures.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Support services
• Early-stage
• Singapore
• East Ventures
• Food
• Logistics
• e-commerce
• Agriculture