garten Buys LeanBox and Grind Coffee

Carol Ortenberg
Brad Avery
Brad Avery

San Francisco-based office food service provider and snack delivery service garten today announced its acquisition of East Coast sister companies LeanBox, a provider of healthy fresh food kiosks, and Grind Coffee, an office provider of coffee kegs and beans. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to a press release, the deal is expected to extend garten’s play in the “employee wellbeing services” market. The company currently offers a number of wellbeing programs such as mindfulness and meditation sessions and yoga classes, as well as installation smoothie bars and aromatherapy bars.

Leanbox, meanwhile, offered offices similar automated, refrigerated kiosks and fresh fruit delivery. Customers could also opt into using water dispensers made by Bevi or hot or cold coffee via Grind Coffee.

“The acquisition of LeanBox is a sign of things to come for garten,” Michael Heinrich, founder and CEO of garten said in the release. “Throughout the pandemic, we focused on optimizing our solutions for the new normal, and now we’re focused on expansion, having options and crafting new solutions to meet the needs for all employers.”

Founded in 2014 as Oh My Green, garten has in recent years focused heavily on broadening its services beyond in-office snacks and lunch services. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, 90% of the company’s clients’ sites shut down; Heinrich subsequently laid off 70% of the company’s 600 workers. To stimulate revenues, garten turned to offering Snack From Home boxes for remote workers and layered in other service offerings.

With this acquisition, Garten is now emphasizing a hybrid model that anticipates a mixture of employees working both remotely and in-person. Despite the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus creating uncertainty for many companies, LeanBox’s tech-enabled kiosks provide a “low-touch food option” for those seeking to minimize the spread of germs as offices begin to reopen.

Garten also offers companies a lower cost option of providing fresh food to workers, without having to maintain the overhead of fully functioning cafeterias — a move that comes as many sectors look to save capital in the face of higher supply chain costs and inflation, yet also are trying to entice workers to return to the workplace.

LeanBox is garten’s third acquisition in recent years. In 2017, garten acquired Blissmo, an online retailer specializing in eco-friendly and organic products that has since ceased operation. In January 2020 it acquired Byte Foods, the food distribution and logistics division of Byte Technology. Byte provided a similar service as LeanBox, selling standalone, automated refrigerators stocked with fresh meals, snacks, and beverages.

Under that previous deal, while garten acquired the rights to sell or lease finished Byte refrigerators and handled stocking them (the Byte Foods part of the business), Byte Technologies maintained ownership over the fridge technology itself.

Unlike garten, LeanBox currently uses its own software platform, according to Byte Technology founder Lee Mokri. The acquisition brings that software in-house and, more importantly, gives the company access to greater distribution. Almost all 500 garten refrigerators are currently located on the West Coast; in contrast, LeanBox has been heavily focused on the East Coast, particularly in the New England area where it operates a warehouse facility in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

It’s unclear if LeanBox co-founder Shea Coakley, also a co-founder ofBack Bay Coffee Roasters, will remain with the company. Based in Massachusetts, Back Bay sold a line of RTD cold brew coffees in retail but struggled during the pandemic. Currently the brand’s website is offline and its social media has not been updated since April 2020, with its presence on shelves unknown.

“Big news today for LeanBox and Grind Coffee. We have officially been acquired by Garten,” Coakley wrote in a Linkedin post. “I know that what we have created is in great hands with Michael Heinrich and the rest of the Garten team.”