Grocery Gateway
| File:GroceryGatewayLogo.GIF | |
| Subsidiary | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Industry | Online retailer |
| Founded 📆 | 1997 in Toronto, Ontario |
| Founders 👔 | Bill Di Nardo Scott Bryan Stephen Tallevi Tomas Berinstein Ben Jones Alan Lamb |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Areas served 🗺️ | Greater Toronto Area Oakville Burlington Tri-Cities |
| Members | |
Number of employees | |
| Parent | Longo's |
| 🌐 Website | [Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 665: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). ] |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Grocery Gateway is a grocery delivery service based in Ontario and serves the entire Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Grocery Gateway was the brainchild of Toronto entrepreneur Bill Di Nardo, who, along with co-founders Scott Bryan, Stephen Tallevi, Tomas Berinstein, Ben Jones, and Alan Lamb, started the company in late 1997. Over the next several years, Grocery Gateway would raise over $100 million in financing and, at its peak, employed over 600 people.
Since August 25, 2004, Grocery Gateway has been operated by Longo Brothers Fruit Market Incorporated.
Grocery Gateway started by picking its orders from Longo's stores around the GTA but outgrew the stores in 1999 and acquired warehouse and office space in Mississauga. Within 12 months of operation in the new facility, it became clear they would need more space, and they signed a lease at the Downsview property in Toronto.
Grocery Gateway grew slowly at the start. Bootstrapped by the early group, Di Nardo and Bryan wrote the first cheques to get the business going. The original advisory board included John Geci, Pat MacGinnis, and Gary Potter. The team approached a number of independent grocers around Toronto to be their supply partners. Anthony Longo and his team stepped forward and were exceptional partners. They provided access to the stores for the team to take pictures of all the products, record the relevant information, and start to build "picking route maps". Eventually, the stores were transformed into distribution centres at night where hundreds of orders were picked and packed. Eight Longo's stores were used at the peak of store-based picking before the group moved to the warehouse in Mississauga.
In 1999, the team started looking for capital to help accelerate the business. There were similar businesses in the U.S. that had started to get funding, like HomeGrocer, Webvan, Streamline, and Peapod. Eventually, with the help of Bob Shoniker, Grocery Gateway received early signs of interest from Rocco Rossi and Tony Brown at Torstar. With momentum building and deliveries actually picking up, other Canadian VC firms took an interest in the company. The first financing round would eventually be completed with Vern Lobo (Mosaic Venture Partners), Stuart Lombard, Osama Araft, and John Albright (Albright Ventures), and Sophie Forest (Sofinov – a Caisse de Dépôt division). The first major raise was closed at over $30 million.
Around the time of the first VC financing, Claude Germain joined the team as Chief Operating Officer. Claude was familiar to some of the VCs as a Harvard MBA alumnus and former BCG consultant. Di Nardo and Bryan played rugby with Claude at the Balmy Beach Rugby Club, which would become the source of a number of future Grocery Gateway employees.
Claude drove the design of the first major facility with the help of Giffels Engineering and Jim Rutherford, who was the project manager for the build phase.
See also
References
- Chilton, Chilton (April 12, 2001). "Grocery day made easy". The Record (Kitchener, Ontario). Retrieved December 12, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- Hamilton, Tyler (July 17, 2001). "Internet grocer expands service ; Grocery Gateway buys two firms in bid to diversify". Toronto Star. Retrieved December 12, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- Westhead, Rick (August 26, 2004). "Grocery Gateway lost millions; Longo's buys firm for $6.96 million GTA's food sector worth $9 billion". Toronto Star . Retrieved December 12, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- Wong, Tony; Hamilton, Tyler (August 25, 2004). "Grocery Gateway sold; Longo's taking over online food delivery business Two companies have been partners for six years". Toronto Star . Retrieved December 12, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- "Grocery Gateway responds to article on The Brampton News". The Brampton News. March 17, 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2011. External link in
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External links
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