Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams Join Forces to Prove Frozen Food ‘is Not a Compromise’
When Rachel Drori founded Daily Harvest, she did so with one goal in mind: make healthy eating easier. Her frozen smoothies, soups, and bowls are made with predominantly organic superfood ingredients, and it seems that stars have taken notice: both Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow and 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion Serena Williams have joined forces with the brand to expand its line and promote its mission.
“Serena and Gwyneth immediately understood our mission to provide convenient foods without nutritional compromise, and their passion for what we are building will make them instrumental members of our investment team,” said Rachel Drori, Founder and CEO of Daily Harvest.
Founded in 2015, Daily Harvest is one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer food brands, delivering frozen single-serving smoothies, soups, and, most recently, activated bowls like overnight oats and chia puddings to the public.
“I invest in businesses that operate with sincerity and integrity and deliver a pure and uncompromised product,” said Serena Williams, who first discovered the product through her fiancé, who began buying the smoothies for their home. “I’m excited about Daily Harvest’s future as a female-led business and I look forward to helping more people gain access to nutritious meals.”
Daily Harvest’s goal is to create a nutritious, healthful product, which means using organic ingredients whenever possible.
“We’d like to be 100 percent organic,” says Drori. “Right now it’s not possible, but we’re working fast and furiously to make it possible.”
In the meantime, the company has committed to never choose conventional for any produce item on EWG’s Dirty Dozen list of produce that is likely to be contaminated with pesticides and to partner directly with farmers for as much transparency as possible.
“By going directly to the farmers and building relationships directly with them, we’re able to help them build an organic crop,” she says.
Drori hopes that the products will help busy people who still want to eat healthful foods to get quicker, easier access to these kinds of ingredients.
“We all aspire to eat a certain way, but those aspirations often get foiled by life,” she says. “It’s one thing to want to eat a certain way, but to find the time to do the shopping and the prepping and the chopping… it’s kind of a modern eating dilemma.”
Flash-Freezing Health and Nutrients
Paltrow and Williams’ support will certainly shine a spotlight on this company’s efforts, particularly when it comes to elevating the reputation of frozen food.
“Frozen food is something that people often associate with chicken nuggets and frozen pizza,” says Drori.
But while consumers often shy away from the freezer aisle, studies have shown that frozen produce is often better than fresh, especially when, as with Daily Harvest, it is frozen right on the farm. One 2013 study from the University of Chester showed “noticeable” decreases in nutrients in fruits after three days of refrigerated storage, and findings in a 2016 study in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis did not “support the common belief of consumers that fresh food has significantly greater nutritional value than its frozen counterpart.”
“Farm-frozen produce is picked at its nutritional peak, retains more nutrients and its more readily available to everyone,” says Paltrow. “For this reason Daily Harvest really resonated with me and I am so excited to get behind a revolution in frozen with my investment.”
Drori hopes that in partnering with Paltrow and Williams, the fact that “frozen is not a compromise” can reach a much broader audience, and more consumers will be able to benefit from easy access to delicious nutrition.
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