Alex Torrey
Co-founder, CEO
Philadelphia, PA
Alex Torrey and the team at the The Rounds realized that convenience can be sustainable and sustainability can be convenient.
Grocery delivery is a luxury that has grown in popularity over the past year. Plastic bags, one-time use products, and convenience swooped the city as we tried to avoid hitting up grocery stories as best we could.
Meet the MlkMn, making The Rounds to apartments and homes around Philadelphia to make our city just a little more sustainable.
Alex Torrey and the team at the TheRounds realized that convenience can be sustainable and sustainability can be convenient.
The Rounds launched in 2019 because the way we get everyday essentials in cities is not sustainable. As consumers prioritize convenience and have turned to online ordering for everything, this generates tons of excess packaging and waste. The pandemic only accelerated this trend.
I started to think, ‘OK, there are 500 other people that live in this apartment building in Center City, and we all use hand soap, and we’re all probably throwing away these empty plastic bottles that have absolutely nothing wrong with them when they run out. And a lot of us end up placing an order on Amazon or some other site and these packages just come in throughout the month. You don’t have to have an operations P.hD. to see that’s not working.’
The two Penn Wharton graduates believe that affordability and convenience do not have to be synonymous with Amazon. The team makes “the rounds” to apartment buildings and homes around the city to deliver everyday essentials, and return to pick up your empty bottles and containers to be refilled each week--think InstaCart with bottle service.
So your goods are coming from around the block, not around the world. This “last-meter” delivery system is truly zero-emissions, and keeps countless Amazon vans and mail trucks from blocking streets and wastefully idling on corners.
Each TheRounds delivery helps reduce a member’s carbon footprint. In 2020, its members cut approximately 40 lbs of waste each.
Even their delivery process is sustainable! There are Neighborhood Refillment Centers centrally located in neighborhoods across city which allows orders to be fulfilled by foot, on e-bikes or electric scooters.