By Riley Kaminer
Do you ever dream of returning to the good old days when a milkman would pass by your home, dropping off some dairy delicacies on his way?
The days of your local milkman may now be a distant memory, but one startup is reviving the dream – and building the tech-enabled infrastructure to deliver much more than milk.
Meet The Rounds, a company that is on a mission to deliver your daily staples efficiently and with zero waste on a weekly basis. Users who sign up for a $10/month membership get access to all the best in sustainable staples – everything from paper towels and trash bags to local bread and produce. By providing goods in reusable containers, The Rounds reports that its members save up to 50 pounds of packaging waste each year.
Unlike services such as Uber Eats and DoorDash, The Rounds’ delivery drivers are W2 employees with health insurance. The majority of deliveries are made using e-bikes with trailers attached.
The Rounds recently announced that it has expanded its delivery area to include a large portion of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. “You’d be crazy not to prioritize Miami as a startup,” Brooklyn-based founder Alex Torrey told Refresh Miami, underscoring the world-class and diverse nature of Miami as a city. “Miami is growing – it’s very vibrant. Now we’ve gone as far as Fort Lauderdale, and we really want to continue growing.”
Before launching The Rounds, Torrey built an experiential shopping platform that was featured on Shark Tank and worked at two major advertising agencies. So far, The Rounds has raised $42 million in venture funds to scale their business. “We’re looking to build a really big business that can make a really big impact,” said Torrey. “We want one day for people to say that The Rounds killed single-use plastic.”
As a Mexican-American himself, Torrey asserted that “in Latin culture, sustainability is not prioritized to the same level as in other countries.”
“We saw this as an opportunity to win on convenience, with our delivery service – and then show that this is also the more sustainable way,” Torrey continued.
About half of the products you can find on The Rounds are sourced locally. Some are even hyperlocal: “stuff you would find at your local farmers’ market.”
“We want to be a platform for local business,” he said of the broader vision for The Rounds. “We are building the first-ever two-way last-mile logistics network. We want to be the rails that will power local commerce. And we are the most efficient way to move goods in a city.” To a large extent, these rails are already built – with Torrey noting that fresh fruits and vegetables in many cases go “from dirt to door in a matter of hours.”
The Rounds picks up things like composting, recycling, and donations from customers as well. “We want to be the one-stop shop for managing the chores, managing the everyday stuff in the most sustainable way possible,” Torrey explained.
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