Farm direct marketing/networking project

If you want to take a sneak peek, the URL is www.knowthyfood.com and the login info is: username ktf and password: farmer

Portland Green Parenting is a 200 member strong parenting support network in Portland, OR. Our members value local, sustainably produced foods. We have been buying organic foods in bulk for appx 2 yrs now in order to supply our families with quality foods at fair prices. We are currently growing our membership faster than we can keep up and so we are expanding into a 5,600 sq ft facility shortly (April 2010 is our anticipated grand opening).

Currently most of our vendors are distributors and wholesalers, but we plan to radically increase farm-direct offerings. We have just completed the installation of an online application based on the wildly successful model of the Oklahoma and Nebraska Food Co-ops. The online application allows local farmers and artisans to direct market their products to local consumers, and consumers can shop online from the convenience of their home. The idea is to create a year round online farmers market! This application is successfully in use in at least a dozen other states that I know of, and has the potential to help farmers collectively make half a million in sales a month. I believe the Oklahoma Food Co-op grosses over $600,000 a year!

I want to invite all the local farmers and artisans to sign up for this service. You get to market your products as coming from your farm, retain your identity and brand, and set your own prices. Portland Green Parenting will work closely with farmers to create cooperation rather than competition and set fair market prices.

The orders would come in once a week through the website. We will aggregate the orders and then farmers will deliver to our centrally located warehouse in inner SE Portland during set days (once a week for produce and perishables and otherwise just once a month) where we will sort the products, and the consumers will pick up their farm direct baskets of wonderful local fresh goods.

There would be a 10% fee to farmers to sell and a 10% fee to consumers to buy.

The online product catalog and ordering application is ready to go, but the site won't go public until it is populated with a few more offerings. We want to show case an abundance of local foods. As of today we have a handful of farmers and producers signed up already and actively inviting many more to join in on this collective effort.

If you want to take a sneak peek, the URL is www.knowthyfood.com and the login info is: username ktf and password: farmer

If you like what you see so far or the idea of being a part of this effort, please feel free to join and start entering information. I am also always happy to help you enter data and answer any questions you may have. We look forward to working together and eating your yummy food!
Thanks so much!
--Rebecca