There is a new start-up sprawling across Atlanta known for “making the rounds.”
The Rounds is a subscription-based delivery service bringing home essentials and non-perishable foods right to residents’ doorsteps, all while cutting typical package waste with reusable containers.
The Rounds originated in 2019 in Philadelphia, where co-founder Alex Torrey was in business school at the the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. After Washington, D.C., and Miami, the company broke into the Atlanta market in 2022.
Atlanta is the first of the Rounds’ cities to expand, announcing last month that it nearly tripled its coverage size in July to include the entire perimeter and some of its northern suburbs.
“This is just the first expansion, but we want to keep going,” said Torrey, a UGA graduate who grew up in North Atlanta.
The company currently has about 20 employees in Atlanta. Torrey did not give a breakdown of customers in each city but said they serve more than 10,000 members across all its markets. Members subscribe at $10 a month, according to the company’s website.
“I think the biggest, most important piece for us is our retention,” Torrey said. “When someone signs up for The Rounds, they stick.”
The company’s inventory is provided through wholesale, including many partnerships with local businesses.
The Rounds’ mission for sustainability targets one of the largest contributors of waste: packaging. Waste is slashed by using and re-using containers and totes, largely eliminating single-use plastic and cardboard.
That allows for about 94% of the company’s deliveries to come entirely waste-free, with the other 6% coming from original food packaging necessary for food safety, according the company’s website.
“I believe that is the future, it allows us to have a much more efficient use of resources,” Torrey said. “I believe waste is just bad design.”
A U.N. sustainability report from 2018 found that most waste from single-use plastics come from packaging. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency estimates about 82.2 million tons of waste were generated that year from containers and packaging.
Torrey touts local partnerships that separate The Rounds from other delivery services, such as Instacart. Customers who order from The Rounds website may find products from metro-based Home Town Honey or various nut butters from Georgia Grinders.
Three Girls Granola is a local family business that started selling its homemade granola in farmers’ markets from Sandy Springs to Grant Park. One day last spring, a representative from The Rounds found Three Girls Granola at a market, and a partnership was born.
“It helps us to reach more people in the community,” said Elizabeth Bein, one of three family founders of Three Girls Granola. “It’s one of those things we highlight, our partnership with them, because we are so proud to be part of reducing waste.”
Another local business, Emerald City Bagels, has seen the number of orders from The Rounds steadily grow over the past 6-9 months, said company founders Deanna and Jackie Halcrow.
Deliveries are scheduled weekly, so subscribers know when they are getting their deliveries. Much like the milkman’s dairy customers of years past, customers of The Rounds leave their used containers for pick-up from the “rounders,” the delivery workers.
About 70% of its Atlanta deliveries are handled by “rounders,” as they are called, riding e-bikes that pull small trailers. The company mostly uses e-vans as an alternative during inclement weather or at high-density delivery sites, Torrey said.
In Candler Park on a summer day, an e-bike rider hauls packed tubs through the neighborhood. A rounder unloads the tubs with green totes full of home essentials and non-perishable foods, and walks them up to home doorsteps.
Nick McCormack, of Decatur, who has worked as a rounder with job benefits for just over a year, took this route one day last week. On a typical day, he picks up pre-packaged orders at one of The Rounds’ neighborhood refill centers, then his routes. He described it like a normal 9-to-5 job.
McCormack said his favorite part of the job is being on the bike.
“You get those moments where you are just cruising on the BeltLine,” McCormack said. “You know, sometimes I get my music going, and it is just fun being outside.”
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