A new, simple way to buy the best quality food from your local farmers and food producers
Pleased to announce that NeighbourFood UK joins the zero waste directory. Their mission is to bring the best produce to your table, support our incredible local food producers and build a community around delicious food. Cutting down on food miles and plastic waste.
Cork chef Jack Crotty came to the rescue of the French owned Food Assembly hubs with a new e-commerce platform, NeighbourFood, after news broke in July 2018 that Food Assembly would be pulling out of the UK closing all 70 of its markets.
Jack describes the business as an E-bay for food producers. “What I mean by that is, eBay doesn’t sell products, it creates a market place for sellers and buyers to interact with,” he explains. “So we create a market place which works online and we then build a system so producers can set up profiles, create their own products, set prices themselves and sell to customers. We don’t choose the prices and we don’t choose the products. We just encourage producers to join.”
The advantages for consumers are obvious – great, local food – but the system also works for producers and they see a lot more of the profits from their work. “More and more and corner shops are disappearing,” Jack says, “and small producers have fewer avenues in which they can sell to consumers themselves. Really you are just left with farmers’ markets or emailing your list to people. So you are forced to go into supermarkets and you’re looking at 25% on average for what they are selling it for. The supermarket requires 75% to be able to do what they do and the producers get 25% and the only option they have to be able to make a good living is to scale up.”
The newest NeighbourFood hub to open is Blairgowrie & Rattray.
The initiative launched with a Spring Taster on 30th May at The Heat Project, 1 – 3 Meadow Place Blairgowrie.
They are also very pleased to see that several Perthshire clients and contacts are involved, including Bourtree Jams & Preserves, Alison’s Kitchen, The Wright Root, Plastic Free Delivery, Wild Hearth Bakery, Clantastic, Organic Welltree and Coupar Angus Food & Growing Projects.
Find all UK local food hubs here;
https://zerowaste.directory/listing-category/neighbourfood/
