The Digital Farmers’ Market: New Shortcuts to the Freshest Food

  • 📰 WSJ
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 88 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 38%
  • Publisher: 63%

Ireland News News

Ireland Ireland Latest News,Ireland Ireland Headlines

Want your grass-fed beef, heirloom tomatoes and artisan cheese straight from the farm—minus the schlep to the market? Here are the best places to shop online for home delivery

, Tom Bennett left the Marine Corps and began raising chickens and heritage-breed pigs on empty cornfields in southwest Michigan. Bennett Farms’ pastured meats became a farmers’ market success, but the seasonal business was not enough to support a family. Not until Mr. Bennett launched an online shop in 2019 was he able to leave a day job in sales and focus full-time on expanding his farm.

“I had a six-figure income and great health insurance, but in my heart, this is what I wanted to do,” Mr. Bennett said, talking by phone on a recent Friday morning between packing orders and checking on his pigs. Online orders, which Mr. Bennett delivers direct to his customers’ doorsteps, now account for about a third of his farm’s output, and rising.

Farmers’ markets and Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions have historically been the tentpoles of the local food movement and the main avenues for home cooks to access high-quality ingredients direct from the farm. Those options have excluded the lion’s share of the public, for whom a regular trip to the farmers’ market or meal planning around a mystery box of vegetables isn’t feasible.

Mr. Bennett got his business online using e-commerce software from Barn2Door, launched six years ago, which helps farms sell directly to consumers. His market regulars can preorder online, so they’re guaranteed to walk away with their preferred cuts , and the farm has added dozens of new customers via home delivery. An integration with the email marketing company MailChimp helps him promote his business. Routing software lets him plan an efficient delivery route.

Barn2Door is just one of the digital services to emerge in recent years with the aim of helping small farms woo the Amazon crowd. Through the online marketplace Harvie, farmers can sell their own products as well as those from other local farms. Simon Huntley, Harvie’s founder and CEO, began his career building software to help farms manage CSA subscriptions—a model where consumers pay in advance for a weekly assortment of the farm’s output—which began growing in popularity around 2005.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

The farmers can get profits at maximum. But the consumers can buy the vegetables cheaper than the market price.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 98. in İE

Ireland Ireland Latest News, Ireland Ireland Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

12 Fruit Desserts to Make With Your Farmers Market HaulStarting with recipes from Jason Schreiber's colorful cookbook, “Fruit Cake.”
Source: Food52 - 🏆 113. / 63 Read more »

Digital media companies pump the brakes on their rush to go public as SPAC market coolsDreams of going public in January and February have been put on hold for digital media companies as SPACs dry up and investors become more conservative.
Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »