Experienced marketer Joanne McErlain is carrying forward her successful track record in running food markets here, such as The Inns on Saintfield Road in south Belfast, into the launch of NeighbourFood, an online scheme that enables shoppers to click and collect fresh food from local farms from a central depot.
The Inn’s Market, which is among the most popular in the greater Belfast area, regularly attracts thousands of shoppers to a range of stalls from local farms and artisan producers.
Joanne has also organised farmers’ markets in Hillsborough during the summer months.
Established in Ireland in December 2018 by brothers Jack and Martin Crotty in Cork, the innovative scheme has grown since then to 20 markets in England and Scotland and 50 in the Republic.
Jack Crotty began his career as a chef before setting up his restaurant, The Rocket Man, six years ago with the aim of using local produce to create fast food.
The entrepreneur has since started running farmers’ markets from a derelict farmyard in the centre of Cork, where he also sells his own salad produce.
Jack says: “As a small-scale producer and chef, I understand the challenges local producers face to get a fair price and the difficulties people experience trying to source fresh local produce.
“NeighbourFood aims to solve both of these issues and build a community at the same time.”
Joanne explains: “NeighbourFood was designed to give small producers a direct route to market via a computer platform.
“The scheme works just like a farmers’ market but instead of customers heading to their local venue, they can shop with the same producers with a few clicks of a mouse,” she adds.
Joanne runs WeAreBabble marketing and business development consultancy in Belfast.
It works by food producers setting their own prices and getting a fair price for every product sold. They keep 80 per cent of sales for each product, compared to 15-50 per cent through supermarkets. The remaining 20 per cent is split equally between the market host and NeighbourFood.
The Crotty’s vision when they set it up was to enable even small communities to create a self-sustainable food network. It was a means to building strong local economies and providing a new and more profitable route to market for small scale farmers and producers.
The dividends for local communities and the environment can be substantial in that it provides better quality, fresher food for customers while also reducing unnecessary food waste as shoppers buy just what they need for the week.
Each NeighbourFood has a local flavour, which is what makes each market distinctly of its place.
A local market host brings together small farmers and food producers to create a weekly online farmers’ market.
It is a click and collect model with an accessible collection point where producers drop their customers’ weekly orders for collection.
NeighbourFood Newry was the first stepping-stone into Northern Ireland when it was launched by Elaine Quinn in January this year.
Over the four months since launch, it has grown steadily to a consistent 50-60 customers each week.
The NeighbourFood EastSide collection point being developed by Joanne is at Portview Trade Centre on the lower Newtownards Road. There are also plans for new collection points across Northern Ireland.
Joanne says the reception from local producers has been “very positive, both from those already trading on the Newry market and those signed up for the EastSide collection point at Portview Trade Centre”.
Producers already signed up to supply Neighboufood market include Mike’s Fancy Cheese, the developer of Young Buck award-winning blue cheese; Damien Tumelty of Castlescreen Farm in Downpatrick, a producer of Dexter beef as well as ham and chicken; and Bara Bakehouse in Comber, a sourdough bread baker.
“NeighbourFood customers benefit from the convenience of planning their weekly shop at home, filling their fridge with the best of local food available in their area, ensuring that their weekly shopping spend is spent in their local community,” said Joanne.
“The icing on the cake is the time saved with a collection that takes just minutes.”
To shop at the first NeighbourFood market in Belfast people can sign up at www.neighbourfood.co.uk/eastside and note that they can shop weekly or as often as required.
Each week a full selection of products will go live and customers will be invited to place their orders any time between Friday and the following Tuesday at midnight.
Once all orders have been made, they are sent to the producers for making, baking, picking and packing and will be ready to collect each Thursday at Portview Trade Centre from 5pm-7pm. To shop, people should go to neighbourfood.co.uk/eastside
The scheme offers shoppers direct access to a range of high quality and fresh foods direct from local farmers and artisan producers.
Jack Crotty describes the business as an eBay 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.
“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,” he adds.
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