The FruitGuys is a fruit and snack delivery company that provides farm-fresh fruit, vegetables, and nutritious snacks to workplaces nationwide and schools across California. The company also operates programs supporting small farms and underrepresented farmers while giving back through food donations and funding for sustainable farming grants. Pulse 2.0 interviewed The FruitGuys CEO Erin Mittelstaedt, who joined the company in 2007 and became CEO, or “Chief Banana,” in 2023, to learn more.
Erin Mittelstaedt’s Background
When asked about her background, Mittelstaedt shared:
I have a degree in music from the University of Pennsylvania, and before joining The FruitGuys, I worked as a manager at Trader Joe’s and a case manager at Safe Horizons, a victim assistance nonprofit.
I joined The FruitGuys in 2007 and worked my way up, officially becoming CEO, a.k.a. Chief Banana, in 2023.
I live in San Francisco with my wife, Julie, and our two fruit-loving boys.
How The FruitGuys Started
When asked how the idea for The FruitGuys came together, Mittelstaedt explained:
My brother Chris Mittelstaedt and his wife Pia Hinckle started The FruitGuys from their one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco in 1998.
The city was in the middle of the dot-com boom at the time, and Chris had a job delivering faxes. He noticed that office workers were essentially living on energy drinks and candy bars.
Chris wanted to bring a fresh, healthy option into the workplace, and he chose fruit!
From the beginning, he focused on sourcing from small, local farms and giving back through food donations. He made the first delivery by scooter and Honda Civic. Today, we deliver nationwide!
Favorite Memory
When asked about her favorite memory working for The FruitGuys so far, Mittelstaedt said:
I have so many fond memories of my time at The FruitGuys, but I’ll always treasure the memory of my first-ever farm visit.
I was a fruit buyer for our Pennsylvania facility at the time, and I found Three Springs Fruit Farm through the local farmers’ market. It’s a seventh-generation family farm founded in 1901 that grows a variety of fruit and vegetables.
I drove out to Aspers, Pennsylvania, to meet Ben Wenk, one of three brothers who ran the farm, and he was so kind to me. We spent hours together walking through the trees while he explained Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and showed me how his family cared for the land.
It was an amazing experience and my first introduction to sustainable farming.
Core Products And Services
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When asked about The FruitGuys’ core products and features, Mittelstaedt detailed:
The FruitGuys is a fruit and snack delivery company. We deliver farm-fresh fruit, vegetables, and nutritious snacks to workplaces nationwide and schools across California.
Whenever we can, we source our fruit from small independent farms and our snacks from mission-minded brands.
We also offer events like fruit tastings and farmers’ markets that bring employees together in the workplace, and Take a Breather On Demand virtual wellness sessions to help workers relax and recharge.
Our Harvest Mix is our most popular product for offices. It’s a curated box of farm-fresh fruit that changes with the seasons.
Every week, our expert buyers choose the best-tasting fruit from local farms and beyond to curate special mixes for each region. A single Harvest Mix will often include more than a dozen different types of fruit, from peaches and cherries to mangoes and bananas.
In addition to our office business and Farm-to-School Program, we run a program called Farm-Fit that connects local farmers from underrepresented communities with universities, corporate campuses, cultural institutions, and other institutions that serve fresh produce.
Farm-Fit is designed to bring more business opportunities to underrepresented farmers, including people who identify as AAPI, BIPOC, disabled, immigrants, Latinx, LGBTQ+, veterans, or women, and more local produce to eaters.
Ultimately, we want to create a more equitable, sustainable, and transparent food supply chain.
Navigating Economic Challenges
When asked about recent challenges in the sector and how The FruitGuys has overcome them, Mittelstaedt explained:
Economic downturns are the biggest challenge for our business, because wellness benefits like fresh fruit are often the first things to go when companies tighten their belts.
Over the years, we’ve made it through a lot of these downturns, including the dot-com crash and the 2008 Recession.
The biggest challenge by far was the COVID-19 pandemic. When offices shut down, we lost 90% of our business in just two weeks.
My brother Chris was CEO at the time, and the leadership team made the difficult decision to lay off most of our staff. Everyone who was left pulled together and worked incredibly hard to pivot our service to home delivery and other special projects.
Amazingly, we pulled through, and now that people are back in the office The FruitGuys is growing and thriving again.
How The Technology Has Evolved
When asked how The FruitGuys’ technology has evolved since launching, Mittelstaedt said:
Technology has changed so much since 1998! When Chris started the business, I remember his wife, Pia, printing invoices on a dot-matrix printer, folding them by hand, and putting them in envelopes to send to clients through snail mail.
We also had to route every box by hand.
Fast-forward almost 30 years, and we have an online shopping cart and manage inventory across the country through an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
The technology has changed, but the focus of our business is still the same: delivering farm-fresh fruit to employees to keep them healthy and happy.
I’m excited to see where tech takes us next, whether that’s integrating AI or giving clients more self-service options.
Key Company Milestones
When asked about some of The FruitGuys’ most significant milestones, Mittelstaedt highlighted:
Our first major milestone was expanding to multiple locations. Back in 1998, we had just one office in San Francisco. We opened our second facility in Pennsylvania in 2007. Today, we serve workplaces nationwide from 11 facilities across the country.
Another major milestone was launching our Farm-to-School Program in 2008. We deliver nutritious fresh produce to almost 100 school districts now!
That same year, we also launched the Farm Steward Program by donating bees to Gabriel Farm in Sebastopol, California.
That program evolved into the nonprofit The FruitGuys Community Fund, which still awards annual grants to small farms for sustainability projects.
A few other milestones: We added nutritious packaged snacks to our product lineup in 2016 and became B Corp Certified in 2019.
Customer Success Stories
When asked about customer success stories, Mittelstaedt said:
You can find case studies and quotes from four of our customers here.
My favorite stories from customers are the ones about how our fruit has brought their team together.
I love hearing that employees get excited for every new delivery and gather around the fruit bowl to see what’s new and taste things together.
Getting people excited about healthy snacks and bringing positive energy into the office is what we’re all about.
Funding And Revenue
When asked whether The FruitGuys could discuss funding or revenue metrics, Mittelstaedt said:
Not at this time.
Total Addressable Market
When asked about the total addressable market The FruitGuys is pursuing, Mittelstaedt explained:
Any US business with more than 10 employees working in the office is a potential client for us, and so is every K-12 school in California.
We want to reach as many of those folks as we can, because the more people who get deliveries of our farm-fresh fruit and snacks, the more independent farms we can support, and the more we can give back to farmers and people in need in our communities.
Competitive Differentiation
When asked what differentiates The FruitGuys from its competition, Mittelstaedt said:
We’re best known for our reliable deliveries, offering a wide variety of high-quality fruit, and sourcing from small, local farms whenever we can.
We also give back with every box through our GoodWorks program.
We donate food to local hunger relief organizations every week and fund grants for small farms every year through The FruitGuys Community Fund.
We’re women-led and B Corp Certified. As a B Corp, we’re committed to donating a minimum value of 20% of our annual profits. In 2025, we donated 31%!
Future Goals
When discussing The FruitGuys’ future goals, Mittelstaedt concluded:
Our main goal is to continue growing our impact by reaching more eaters, supporting more independent farms across the country, and donating more food to people in need.
We also want to continue supporting our employees and bring them more opportunities to grow.
