UK’s “First Online Farmers’ Market” Aims To Reinvent Food Supply Chain

An online initiative that encourages local shoppers to order their fresh produce direct from local growers is being rolled out across the country.

The brainchild of former equity salesman Ben Pugh, FarmDropis essentially a ‘click and collect’ online farmers’ market that gives producers greater control of the prices they can charge. While it’s not unheard of for growers and food producers to receive as little as 10-15% of the final consumer price of their products when sold through major retailers, with FarmDrop they get to keep 80% of the price.

Following a number of successful trials held across London over the past year, last month saw the scheme extended to 10 new areas across the UK, with around 125 producers, ranging from fruit and vegetable growers through to bakers and butchers, already signed up to a ‘Produce Manifesto’ that incorporates sustainability, transparency, and locality. The project, which has been financed by crowdfunding, hopes to expand to 350 FarmDrops across the UK within two years.

How It Works?

• Producers and farmers list their products on the FarmDrop website and set their own price
• Shoppers enter their postcode and browse the available local products, place their orders, and pay online in advance (minimum order of £5)
• Orders are sent to the producers, who deliver to a specified drop off point (a pub, town hall, school, or community centre), where they are managed by a designated ‘keeper’ who deals with customers picking up their weekly shop
• The producers keep 80% of sales, the keeper receives 10%, with the remaining 10% going to cover FarmDrop’s running costs, including payment processing costs of 2%.

Ben Pugh first thought of the FarmDrop concept while sitting in his car at a motorway service station just off the M3, when his frustration at the lack of availability of locally-grown, seasonal produce led him to asking the question: ‘why was no one selling it over the internet?’

He explained: “In my previous life I spent a lot of time looking at supermarkets and food producers and became ever more fascinated with the economics of the UK food supply chain. The more I looked, the more I saw an industry that was ripe for positive, internet driven change, so I began visiting a few farmers.

“One grower was selling butternut squash to a supermarket for £1 which in turn was selling them for £3. And I thought why is the person producing the food only receiving a third of the retail price?”

Figures show that less than 1% of the UK’s total grocery spend went on locally sourced food in 2012, although DEFRA estimates that nearly three-quarters (70%) of consumers actually want to ‘buy local’.