Whole Foods Market has partnered with Boulder’s to feed tech professionals healthy food and help the grocer improve its own technology.
The partnership appears to be a first of its kind for the organic grocery chain based in Texas. Whole Foods will stock BoomTown’s kitchen with healthy food and provide grocery delivery from Whole Foods via Instacart.
BoomTown will help the grocer’s regional operation with its technology. That could include building apps to help the grocer’s internal operations to donation campaigns in conjunction with third-party non profits.
But other than partnering with a technology accelerator, such local match ups aren’t too out of the ordinary for the grocer. Whole Foods often supports the local community it lives in by testing out food products grown or made by local farmers and providers. (Here’s the store carries.)
“This is the first time we we have entered a partnership with a tech accelerator,” said Adam Ornelas, Regional Marketing & Community Relations for Colorado with Whole Foods Market. “We’re looking to pursue partnerships with organizations and companies that are committed to making positive impacts in the community. Those entities can range from Food related – to non-food related. It’s all about what we can learn from one another and what we can do together.”
BoomTown began as a technology accelerator and has since helped at least 33 startups get to the new level of attention, funding and market share. Graduates include , and .
The company has expanded its expertise by building an and adding a accelerator. The partnership with Whole Foods appears to be more about health than developing food products.
“There is a pervasive fallacy in startup culture that drinking Red Bull, staying up all night and forgoing exercise creates a competitive advantage for the startup. This is a myth. And, this kind of thinking causes big problems for entrepreneurs. It’s unsustainable and it’s unhealthy,” said Toby Krout, BoomTown’s co-director.
“At Boomtown, we orbit around entrepreneurs. Everything that we do is to serve them,” he added. “So, it’s a no-brainer for us to try to eliminate this thinking. While it’s true that launching and running startups requires occasional sprints, the reality is that balanced teams are more productive. By engaging in partnerships like this, we get to provide a healthier environment for our startups and by doing so we create a competitive advantage for them.”
Whole Foods approached BoomTown just as the accelerator was searching for ways to bring balance “inside our doors,” said Krout, adding there is an undisclosed monetary exchange.
Added Ornelas, with Whole Foods, “We hope to tap into that creative and innovative spirit that is at the core of Boulder and embodied by the entrepreneurs at BoomTown. We want to learn how to further implement that spirit into our every day routines locally and regionally.”
