Focol

Small scale farming has been getting out of business in the past decades due to increase in urbanization, globalization of trade, and increase in farming technology and investment by bigger players. Local farmers's business risk is further brought to light during Covid-19 because of specific changes and measures implemented:

Closure of restaurants, canteens, schools, etc.
Hospitality events, such as weddings cancelled
Farmers markets cancelled
Farm visits and tourism stopped
Labour supply at risk due to restriction on moveme
Demand uncertainty complicating crop production plans

At the same time, we are seeing increase in demand from consumer to consume locally and building community and culture around food:

Willing to pay +12.5% for locally sourced ingredients
Willing to pay +26.8% for ingredients from a known farmer
Cooking at home +83% since Covid-19

We found a gap between customer's preference to locally grown produce and supply chain of local farms that needs to be added:

83% of residents do not know any local farm
67% of residents do not know locally grown food ingredients
14% of residents do not know local ecological dishes

By connecting local farmers to end consumers, we hope to increase local agriculture business, reduce dependence on imported goods, increase food security, and reduce CO2 emission while reestablishing land use diversity. The solution will be in form of a platform that provides customers with:

Membership Access to our Local Online Community
Access to Webinars and exclusive cook-along sessions with local specialties
Possibility of ordering Food Boxes with locally farmed fresh ingredients for home-cooking
Access to educational content on food consumption environmental impacts