Posted on August 31, 2009 - by J Lane

Thinking about new projects

Maybe it’s because summer’s almost over, or maybe it’s because I haven’t started something new in a while, but I’ve been thinking about starting a new project.  I thought that I’d post about it here just to get the idea off my chest and see if there’s any neat ideas/feedback out there.

The gist of the project is to offer an local, online farmer’s market.

One of the things I enjoy most about the summer is the farmer’s markets here on Mayne.  It’s easy to find fresh, seasonal, local produce on Mayne Island.  Besides the farmer’s market every Saturday, a lot of the local farms will also do sales right at their gate.

In the winter months, it can be difficult to get fresh produce.  The stuff that the grocery store brings in is at best not so fresh, and at worst decomposing on the shelf (seriously).  I’ve heard that because we’re a small island and a small store, that we usually get the leftovers when it comes to produce distribution.

The first winter we lived here, one of the local farms offered a box program.  Weekly produce boxes full of fresh greens, kale, radishes and other tasty treats were a godsend.  Why can’t we have that year-round?  What do local growers do to sell their stuff in the off season?

Even during the summer months, I heard some local growers saying that they had huge amounts of certain things, with nowhere to sell it.  They could only move so many cucumbers every Saturday morning.

So the idea is this:

1. Local growers set up a profile page with contact info and a map showing their location on the island.
2. They select from (or add to) a list of products that they have available.  They can indicate whether they have “Lots”, “Some”, or “Little” of any particular item.
3. People can then log on and see what’s in season, where they can get it, and get in contact with growers to arrange to buy some.  I’d love to work in some type of electronic payment setup too so that cash wasn’t so important, but I’m not sure that this particular market is ready for that.

Down the line (version 1.5), I’d also like to build in a recipe tie in so that if you’ve never had (for example) kale before in your life, and you have no idea how to prepare it, you can get some ideas.  I don’t think that building yet another epicurious.com is called for, but maybe a short note/link database for recipes.

A key to this will be marketing it locally.  It’s the same story as with any online marketplace — you have to hit a critical mass of buyers and sellers before it’s useful to anyone.  It will be free to list and free to search (I haven’t figured out whether there’ll be any sort of revenue model to this site – I can’t see advertising being that big?)