Natoora Our Story

I was living in New York in the late 1990s and I remember one day calling in to my local grocery store. A lady was asking a member of the staff where she could find some peaches. It was December, in the depth of winter, and there was thick snow on the ground. It certainly wasn’t peach season.

I’d grown up eating fantastic fruit & vegetables. At the time, it struck me that something was seriously wrong with how people had come to think about and consume fruits & vegetables: with no knowledge of the seasons, and an expectation that products would be available regardless the time of year. I already knew back then that I wanted to do something about it. What that something would be I was less sure of.

Nearly 20 years on from that day in New York, and more than 10 years since Natoora was founded, our radically seasonal produce is shaping the way chefs cook in over a thousand kitchens across London, Paris, New York and Copenhagen.

Through our presence in the retail community in partnership with Ocado, Waitrose and our high street stores, we are actively engaging consumers in a complete food system revolution.

Franco Fubini
Founder

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

2004 Our Story Begins Natoora starts life as the first online Farmers Market, connecting customers to some of the country’s best butchers, fishmongers, cheesemongers and growers. What we do has changed a lot since then, but we have stayed true to our roots: sourcing directly from producers who share our dedication to flavour.

2007 Setting off a Revolution Our work in the online retail business earns us a reputation as the source of directly sourced, radically seasonal produce. Starting with the River Café, chefs begin to turn to us to connect them to growers across Europe. We build our wholesale channel from scratch, grounded in transparency and direct contact with known growers. Our supply chain now reaches directly into over 700 of the most influential kitchens in London.

2007 Natoora Hub in Milan We want to know exactly who does what and when in our supply chain. We opened a hub in the market in Milan to better understand and engage with the journey of produce from field to kitchen. Since then, we’ve added teams on the ground in Barcelona, Paris, Fondi, New York and L.A, who together work as a unit to ensure that produce is handled as minimally and carefully as possible as it travels across our network.

2012 Natoora on Ocado Our radically seasonal produce launches on Ocado. For the first time, home cooks have the chance to choose directly sourced fruit & vegetables over the intensively grown, year round range of supermarket produce. Our presence on Ocado has actively engaged more and more consumers in our food system revolution.

2012 A Growing Investment At the market in Milan, we came across some exceptional tomatoes. Tracking them back to Francesco in Sicily, we immediately recognised the value of his Datterini, a world apart from the commercially grown varieties bred to stay on the vine at the expense of flavour. Our investment in his project has enabled him to acquire another 10,000m2 of land, build a committed team and gain a GLOBALG.A.P. certification.

2013 Natoora Stores We open our first Natoora shop in Chiswick, southwest London. We’ve since added four more London stores, with plans for more. Stocking solely seasonal fresh produce and sustainably sourced dairy and dry goods, these spaces challenge the idea of the traditional greengrocer and actively engage consumers in our food system revolution.

2014 Good Earth Growers Our partnership with Sean O’Neill establishes Good Earth Growers. Rooted in Crocadon Farm, we forge a network of small-scale growers who share a determination to grow organically for flavour, not yield. The ever-increasing wealth of produce coming out of this project proves that thoughtful, small-scale growing communities can compete with industrial agriculture.

2015 Natoora in Whole Foods, UK We start our relationship with Whole Foods, stocked in all seven of their UK stores.

2016 Natoora in Selfridges We take over the concession and become the exclusive provider of fruits and vegetables to the Oxford Street foodhall, turning around its performance with year-on-year growth.

2017 Natoora NYC Our wholesale service launches in New York, connecting kitchens in Brooklyn and Manhattan to growers of radically flavoursome fruit and vegetables on both coasts. Our unique supply chain enables us to place fresh produce from Europe directly in the hands of chefs. Sand-forced Radicchio from Veneto along with Moro Blood Oranges from Sicily broke new ground on the New York culinary scene. By 2019 the Natoora App is available to all NYC chefs.

2018 Natoora Paris We bring the revolution to Paris, inspiring chefs with exceptional produce direct from growers within Paris and the rest of France. From further afield, we introduce them to Forced Yorkshire Rhubarb and Winter Tomatoes from Sicily, never before seen in French kitchens. In October 2020 we take on a bigger warehouse in Paris, bringing our operation to a whole new level.

2018 Natoora in Waitrose In March 2018, a core range of our produce hits select Waitrose stores across London. Side by side with industrially grown, all year round produce, our radically seasonal fruit and vegetables spark the beginning of a total revolution in how consumers engage with the food system.

2018 Natoora in Whole Food, US Our partnership with Whole Foods extends into US stores. We put Venetian Radicchio, Sorento Lemons and Sicilian Blood Oranges direct into the hands of home cooks in the US for the first time, introducing them to our incredible network of growers across Europe.

2018 Plastic-free Packaging We start our stand against plastic putting together our own team to develop the sustainable packaging of the future. Our home-compostable flow wrap is a landmark bio-based film for our recycled cardboard punnets. We switch from plastic bags to bio-nets made entirely of cellulose in Ocado, Waitrose and Wholefoods, with our commitment extending into our store and delivery packaging.

2019 Natoora Counter In June, we launch Natoora Counter - the first radically seasonal and entirely traceable café in Notting Hill.

2020 Home Delivery In March, we launch our home delivery service in the US and UK — taking our chef-favourite produce to home cooks. Pivoting our app towards a home customer takes our food system revolution to a whole new audience, giving additional stability to our community of growers and producers. We relaunch our bespoke app for chefs under a new name: NatooraPro.

2020 Our First Earthworks Farm: Melilot We launch Natoora Earthworks - our pioneering, regenerative farming programme. Almost two decades of digging deep into our supply chain brings us farming that restores the health of our soils, draws down carbon, and improves the flavour and nutritional density of our food. We partner with chef Dan Cox to launch our first Earthworks farm: Melilot.