When was the last time you went to a farmer’s market?
If you’re a casual fan of organics like me, it probably happened serendipitously – on a Sunday afternoon in New York’s Union Square or Chicago’s Daley Plaza, a welcome find after brunch. You got a chance to score some good looking and delicious produce for that day, and maybe even a couple of fixings for later in the week. Not to mention the unseen benefits to your health, the local economy and environment.
FarmsReach is a new startup that’s trying to take shopping for locally grown food from the happenstance to a regular happening by connecting local farms and buyers. The company's online market enables small-scale farmers to create virtual stalls where they update fresh inventory for delivery or a designated pickup time and place, usually farmer's markets.
Right now the site focuses on restaurant buyers in the San Francisco Bay Area, and inventory comes in bulk quantities. But clearly the bigger opportunity here is consumer – the upside for revolutionizing farmers markets into disruptive rivals to chain grocery stores is huge, both economically and environmentally.
If they brave the consumer markets, the company’s greatest challenge will be transforming behavior. Compete shows that there were only about 500K searches on the term “farmers market” last month (granted it is the start of the season for most of the country). Plus an additional 50K searches for CSA’s or community supported agriculture, the long-established model where people can buy subscriptions to a weekly delivery of a local farm’s harvest over the course of a season.
Not many shop for produce or even groceries online. Peapod and Local Harvest, the largest online grocery shop and farmer’s market/CSA portal, respectively, show between 150K and 400K visitors. Note Local Harvest’s peak in April, when most CSA’s sell out.
Earth2Tech has also called out the challenge of getting farmers, not the most tech-friendly bunch, to update their inventory. Unfortunately, FarmsReach’s first order had to be cancelled due to outdated information in the farmer’s stall.
That hurdle seems tough to overcome, but doable if FarmsReach can provide the economic incentive, i.e. buyer demand. Beta test restaurant buyers from SF Bay area have rushed to the service – they recognize the value of locally sourced foods and are evaluated on their ability to get the best crops from disparate local farms.
If Farmsreach can make the inventories reliable, many more restaurant buyers will follow. One way to incentive farmers to update their inventory could be enabling them to observe each other's success.
Stall profiles and reviews/ratings would socialize FarmsReach ecommerce activity, with the added benefit of reassuring buyers. Like Etsy has realized with handmade crafts (and eBay long ago...), the key to a thriving community of buyers and sellers is making participation and feedback fun and easy.
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