Seal the Seasons, the first national brand to sell locally grown frozen produce, has added Serafina Palandech as VP of sales, and Tom Healy as senior sales advisor. Over the past 10 years, Palandech founded, scaled, and sold her own organic chicken nugget venture. Healy played a significant sales role at both Vitamin Water and Pirates Booty prior to their successful acquisition.
Over the course of 2020, as Americans have adapted to working and eating more at home, the frozen produce category is up 33.7%, according to SPINS, making it one of the fastest growing categories in the grocery store. Despite the sudden expanded demand in the category, legacy brands struggled to keep products on shelf due to the COVID-19 disruption of global supply chains.
The gap in store shelves led to opportunity for Seal the Seasons, which paired flexible distributed supply chains powered by local family farms, with the fastest growing frozen fruit brand in the category. The brand grew sales by 150% YoY, achieving profitability by August.
To finance an expanded team and continued topline growth, the company raised $2.5 million from a group of private investors, led by VentureSouth with significant participation from Fairbridge Park, Semillero Ventures, Slow Money NC members, Food Future Co, and existing shareholders. Fairbridge Park, a NYC based Venture Fund, also made a significant investment in the round.
About Seal the Seasons
Seal the Seasons is pioneering a new locally grown, locally frozen and locally sold brand platform. The company was founded in 2014 with the mission to support local family farms by making local frozen produce and value-added produce to consumers 365 days a year. Seal the Seasons believes that America’s food system must balance the well-being of people, provide wholesome products, and generate sustainable profits, and that local food creates a better future for family farms and communities. As a Certified B Corporation, Seal the Seasons is committed to using business as a force for good in the world.
All of Seal the Seasons’ products are locally grown, and locally sold. The brand first released local fruit and vegetable products in 2016 by selling North Carolina and South Carolina grown produce in grocery store chains based out of the Carolinas.
Seal the Seasons currently is distributed in 4,000+ retail locations while operating in six regions of the United States (Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Southeast) with 4-10 SKUs available in each region. The company was founded in 2014 by Patrick Mateer & Alex Piasecki, local food entrepreneurs who founded the company while in college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
