After revisiting ‘Shark Tank,’ Hungry Harvest just raised $1.15M

Nearly a decade in the making, food delivery service Hungry Harvest is again in funding mode, this time for its HarvestRX program.

In August, the company opened a new funding round with the goal of raising $5 million. So far, CEO Evan Lutz said that it raised $1.15 million from internal investors.

Hungry Harvest redistributes produce that would otherwise be discarded. The company was initially based in Baltimore, Maryland, but moved to Landover in 2021.

The company started off as a direct-to-consumer product but has since added a wholesale option for restaurants and food service companies, a line of branded products and a “food as medicine” program called HarvestRX.

“It’s an exciting time for Hungry Harvest because we’ve proven that our company can grow and be profitable and make a difficult supply chain our core strength,” Lutz told Technical.ly.

Most recently, the company raised $14 million in a Series A in 2020 — Evans said it was largely self-funded until then. But its most high-profile move was in 2016, when Lutz appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” landing a $100,000 investment from Robert Herjavec; in 2020, the company appeared on the show again to share its progress.

With this new round, Lutz said the company will be honing in on HarvestRX, which delivers produce directly to patients completely covered by insurance. Medicaid reimburses for HarvestRX, and the company is HIPAA compliant, Lutz said. He’s hoping to add five to 10 new hires, including technologists, to this team over the next year and work with more healthcare providers, nonprofits and others.

The RX program has grown rapidly since 2018, Lutz said, and B2B as a whole has become a much larger percentage of Hungry Harvest’s revenue in the past few years.

“The timing of this round is really exciting for us, that we can make this change a little bit in our strategy,” Lutz said. “Every dollar that comes into Hungry Harvest is just further validity that we’re on to something really good.”

Longer-term, Lutz is hoping to expand further up and down the East Coast and grow the direct-to-consumer program even more. But in the company’s near-decade of life, he said, he’s encouraged by its adaptability and continued growth.

“Hungry Harvest has been with me, and I’ve been with Hungry Harvest, every step of the way over the past 10 years, both personally and professionally,” Lutz said. “[Moving] from packing boxes in a parking lot to working with some of the largest healthcare providers in the entire country, it’s just a surreal feeling.”