Expedition Foods
| Privately held | |
| Industry | Outdoor gear retail |
| Founded | Hong Kong, (2002) |
| Founder | Mary K Gadams |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong |
|
Area served
|
Global |
|
Key people
|
Mary K Gadams, CEO; Samantha Fanshawe, Vice President; Kathy Lau, Vice President, Eric Lahaie, Vice President |
| Products | RacingThePlanet, 4 Deserts, The Outdoor Store |
| Divisions | RacingThePlanet, The Outdoor Store |
| Subsidiaries | RacingThePlanet (UK) Limited, Expedition Foods |
| Website | www |
RacingThePlanet is an organizer of off-trail and rough-country endurance foot-races, including the 4 Deserts. The company also operates an outdoor products store and a dried foods company.
The 2011 Kimberley Ultramarathon was the subject of a parliamentary inquiry in Western Australia after a number of competitors suffered life-threatening burns when a bushfire overran a part of the route.
In 2007, RacingThePlanet became a case study for the Harvard Business School and is one of the few case studies to be repeated yearly.
In 2009 RacingThePlanet launched an online retail store specializing in selling the outdoor apparel, equipment and nutritional products required for endurance racing. By 2010 the store had grown to stock a much larger variety of products for all Outdoors pursuits. Later in the year, The Outdoor Store became the largest online outdoor gear store in Asia and had distribution hubs in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom allowing global distribution.
In 2010 a record nine competitors completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam, including three women who are the first to have achieved the feat - Samantha Gash of Australia, Lucy Rivers-Bulkeley and Linda Quirk.
A Shanghai-based competitor died of heatstroke after competing in the 2010 Gobi March. His brother claimed Racing the Planet was "reckless" and ill-prepared.
2010 also saw the first 100 km race organised by the company - the which took place in the desert around Hotan in China's souther Xinjiang Province.
In 2010 Ryan Sandes of South Africa was crowned 4 Deserts Champion having won all four of the races he competed in, and Marjiana Pellizer of Croatia was crowned women's champion.
On September 2, 2011, at the 100 km event in the Kimberly, Western Australia, Turia Pitt, 24, and Kate Sanderson, 35, were left with severe burn injuries when fire swept through a rocky gorge during the outback race. Two men - Michael Hull and Martin van der Merwe - suffered less serious burns. RacingThePlanet has not compensated the victims or contributed to their medical treatment, including to Ms Pitt whose expenses exceed $2 million. In November 2012, the Government of Western Australia made ex gratia payments of $450,000 to each of the women.
Originally launched in English, in 2011 the Outdoor Store expanded capability to include Traditional and Simplified Chinese, as well as French, Spanish and Italian.
RacingThePlanet has currently organised 34 races in total. The events are split into two categories, but with all of them sharing certain characteristics.
Those characteristics are that each race is held in a remote but historically or culturally rich location; that the races are rough-country i.e. they take place in wilderness environments across a variety of terrains, mostly off-trail; that competitors must race self-supported carrying all their own food, fluids and equipment for the race; and that the number of competitors accepted on each race is limited to ensure that the pristine environments remain that way, and so that competitors do not feel that they are part of so large a group that they do not get the opportunity to experience the solitude of the location.
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Wikipedia