THE PROBLEM
Independent restaurants and small holding farms have been decimated by the coronavirus crisis. More than 11M restaurant workers have been laid off, millions of dollars worth of food has gone to waste. Our good food producers composed of thousands of family farmers (small, niche, independent farmers) have lost 80% of restaurant customers. The restaurant industry has a huge impact on the small farm economy and plays a key role on how consumers access locally grown food.
Consumer behavior shifted from restaurants and farmers markets to stripping the shelves of grocery stores. Restaurants will not operate at full capacity this year which equals a slow death for the farmers they support. As restaurants and farmers pivot, they are losing customers to generic platforms that charge commissions that are not sustainable to the chef or farmer
SOLUTION
Imagine your neighborhood ‘farm to table’ restaurant as a curbside virtual farmers market one day a week. The Local Food Dispensary is a free digital platform that transforms restaurants into convenient distribution hubs for local and regional farmers. More profit, no commissions, better customer engagement. The platform is free to use, captures important data and sustainable insights for the future.
The Local Food Dispensary is a national campaign to support independent restaurants and farmers. A team of seasoned sales, developers and agencies are working together to move dollars from grocery stores and back to local farmers and neighborhood restaurants.
BACKGROUND
to support the mission and we congratulate all involved. Big Box stores and “Big Ag” supported supply chains are experiencing an unprecedented demand and influx of wealth at the cost of our fragile, good food community. In just 60 days thousands of restaurants have mobilized inventory depleting, commission based 'take-away' programs.
What's missing? An innovative tool and platform that gives restaurants and farmer the upper hand, enabling them to customized and own the guest experience while scaling the good food movement.
Restaurant doors are closed, resulting in an extremely narrowed pipeline to produce and proteins from family farmers and community-driven aggregators. As a result, farms have lost a vast majority of customers and income which causes business uncertainty and food displacement. Overnight, the lights are going out on our 30 year investment of growing a local farm movement.
Today, 81% of meals come from the grocery store compared to 50% pre-coronavirus (source). Our community has moved to buying commodities. Billions of dollars this month and next will not reach the good food movement because dining rooms are limited by law while farmers work four times as hard for 20% revenues - both are slowly shutting down.
THIS OPPORTUNITY IS SUSTAINABLE
There are no up-front costs to restaurants and farmers. Our model gives back to people who care about serving us safe, honest food.
