{"section_1":{"section1_title":"It started with a peach","section1_banner_image":"/uploads/cms_images/our_story_banner_img_sec_1_219811819_61Dro4x3NoL.jpg","section1_short_description":"How a mission to find flavour grew into a food system revolution.","section1_description":"<p>New York City in the weeks leading up to Christmas, 1999. The story goes that Franco Fubini — Natoora’s founder — visited Citarella. It was the second Citarella on 1313 3rd Ave in the Upper East Side, which was just around the block from where he lived. The family-run grocery store was already known for its fish, but it had a fresh produce section right at the entrance. This is where Franco overheard a woman asking for peaches. Peaches in December.</p>","section1_image":"/uploads/cms_images/our_story_img_sec_1_921308311_pexels-photo-672630.jpeg","section1_image_description":"<p>Franco clearly recollects this moment — a single snapshot of his frustrations with New York’s food scene at the time. Cooking for friends, Franco spent his free time searching farmers markets for produce as exceptional as the foods he remembers eating growing up. Everything came up short.</p><p>Born in Argentina to a German-Jewish mother and Italian father, Franco spent his childhood immersed in varied and vibrant food cultures. His step-father’s work took the family to Italy, Egypt and the Netherlands in the 1970s and 80s.</p>"},"section_2":{"section2_quotes":"For close to 20 years, we’ve built our sourcing around a very simple, yet immensely powerful ethos: flavour first.","section2_quotes_author":"Franco Fubini, Natoora Founder & CEO"},"section_3":{"section3_description_1":"<p>It was the direct relationships forged at and through these markets that became springboards for radical change. At the Milan market, Franco tasted a White Peach with flesh almost entirely blushed with deep purple streaks. Two years of hunting around the Italian countryside to trace that peach back to its grower led him to Domenico, whose stone fruits have become an institution for us in Europe over the warmer months.</p>","section3_image_1":"/uploads/cms_images/our_story_img_1_sec_3_39699398_pexels-pixabay-268533.jpg","section3_description_2":"<p>Today, we've taken the revolution beyond London to New York, Miami, Paris, Malmö, Copenhagen and Melbourne. Each city has its own, unique supply chain adapted to its locality. Preserving this granularity is vital to the integrity of our expansion. Far from an extensive, opaque export system, we have built local chains which thrive by way of their direct connections.</p>","section3_image_2":"/uploads/cms_images/our_story_img_2_sec_3_471406902_art_KqCjXuoLHW (1).jpg"},"section_4":{"section4_image":"/uploads/cms_images/our_story_img_sec_4_271303287_wp2555730.jpg","section4_image_title":"Our story is far from finished. In fact, it's only just getting started."}}