Flora Brown & Noah Wentworth, owners of Frinklepod Farm, plan to launch a local meal-delivery service in June. (photo/Frinklepod Farm)

An organic farm in Arundel won the second Pitch York County pitch contest held Thursday night in Biddeford.

How does an organic farm win a startup pitch contest, you may ask. By innovating the way they package and deliver food to their customers.

“Our business idea is a year-round, locally-sourced meal kit called the BEEP Box,” Flora Brown, who with her husband Noah Wentworth owns Frinklepod Farm, told Maine Startups Insider. “BEEP stands for ‘because everyone eats plants’ yet the vast majority of us are not getting the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables in our diets.”

Like many local farms, Frinklepod Farm runs a community-supported agriculture program, or CSA (though its CSA model is different from most in that its members buy credits to spend however they like, whenever they like, in its farm store). But just having access to farm-fresh organic produce still isn’t enough for some people, according to Brown.

“For many people, the prospect of planning and shopping—especially at farm stands and farmers markets—for a meal can be overwhelming and time-consuming, and for others who may be trying to shift their diets to eating more fresh veggies, they may not know where to start,” she said. “That is where our meal kits come in—supporting people who do not have the time and/or confidence to prepare a meal from start to finish.”

The meal kits will highlight organic produce grown at Frinklepod Farm in Arundel and other local farms, along with locally sourced grains, legumes, and other plant-based proteins, Brown said. The ingredients will be pre-measured to fit a recipe included with each kit.

Brown said Frinklepod Farm plans to put the $750 they received for winning the pitch contest towards a new website that will feature an online ordering system, which will allow customers to subscribe to BEEP box online and choose from a different menu of meal options each week.

Brown and Wentworth plan to launch BEEP Box in June after their commercial kitchen is built and will offer home or workplace delivery in the Wells-Kennebunk-Biddeford-Saco region.

“They’re kind of like a localized Blue Apron,” said Patrick Roche, owner of Think Tank Biddeford, a major sponsor of Pitch York County and the venue for the contest. “They have a lot more capacity to grow more food. … It’s early yet, but they’re a successful farm to begin with, they’re young, organic and care a lot about local agriculture and the farm-to-table movement.”

This was round two of Pitch York County and was focused exclusively on food-themed startups. The other entrepreneurs who competed were: Ben Dalpra, pitching his BBQ joint called The Q; Christina Carr, who won second place and $350 for a similar meal-delivery business she’s calling Carr Eats; Miranda McGowan, pitching The Whole Almond; and Tim Nickerson and Michelle Bozeman, who pitched the Maine Juice Company.

Pitch York County was developed to provide a forum for entrepreneurs who live in and/or have connections to York County to practice their business pitches. There will be two more pitch nights—Jan. 12 and Feb. 16, 2017—before a final event in March that will feature the four winners pitching their businesses again for a larger, yet-still-undetermined monetary award.

Joining Frinklepod Farm in the finals will be SpinDoc, a medical-records software company, which won the inaugural York County pitch night, held in November.

Besides Think Tank Biddeford, the other sponsors of Pitch York County are Opticliff Law, Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development, SCORE, New Ventures, Heart of Biddeford, and Biddeford Savings Bank.