Bringing The Farmers’ Market To Your Office

What’s the Latest Development?

Farmigo, which provides software to community-supported agriculture (CSA) businesses, recently began offering an online “local food communities” service which allows groups of people – companies like Etsy and Kiva, for example, which have signed up – to order locally-produced foods each week that are then delivered to the group’s location. The service includes food coaches who provide customized recommendations based on the needs of the group’s members. The initial launch will be in San Francisco and New York City, and there are plans to expand to other major cities in the future.

What’s the Big Idea?

Besides offering a way for people who don’t already shop at farmers’ markets to be able to buy local produce, Farmigo’s focus on groups rather than individuals encourages community-minded thinking. Plus, according to founder Benzi Ronen, it’s convenient: “[Y]ou come to work every day. You pick up your kids at their school everyday. …We turn those into food communities, so it’s not an extra place you need to go to.” He notes that they got the idea for the service upon realizing that less than 1 percent of Americans buy food directly from farms via CSA. “We started to ask ourselves, ‘How do we become relevant to 20 percent of consumers?’”

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