Comments on: Food Innovators Respond to the Whole Foods Acquisition

By: Klaus Mager

Klaus Mager — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:15:00 +0000

there are several references to local food hubs in connection with CSAs. A wide open business opportunity is the establishment of aggregators specialized to work with small to medium sized farms. The difficulty for operators like Whole Foods in sourcing local products is the lack of aggregation to establish sufficient volumes.
//coic2.org/community-development/food-hub/.

We have been working on such a project for some time, but it is difficult to find financing. Linking Amazon with Whole Foods may provide the push required to create the interest for such a service provider.

Food Hubs should be set up to function as food business incubators, providing incubation services to assist upstart farmers and producers to develop their business. Whole Foods has been very active in this area already, why not structure that and go to scale.
//newcoic.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/c-o-food-hub-operating-plan.pdf.

By: Tin Cup NYC

Tin Cup NYC — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 11:47:00 +0000

In reply to bauernhof. bauernhof is correct, CSAs are not distributors, they are the direct membership cooperatives created by the farmers and producers themsleves. Many CSA members are employees and volunteers of the farms and producers and get first priority on product allocations and purchases. The reason most CSAs do not offer a bigger variety is that individual farms specialize in growing and producing specific crops. So the XYZ CSA might offer lettuce, squash, tomatoes, and garlic and the ABC CSA might offer strawberries, cherries, and blueberries. Some farms join forces to create joint venture CSAs.

By: bauernhof

bauernhof — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:48:00 +0000

Just want to point out – Farmigo, Good Eggs, etc = NOT CSAs. A CSA is “Community Supported Agriculture” and it’s a relationship with one farm and FARMER. It’s not a relationship with a distributor like these guys – who have nothing to do with agriculture. Find some new terminology and stop co-opting actual real farmers’ terms and marketing strategies.

By: Tin Cup NYC

Tin Cup NYC — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:12:00 +0000

After what Whole Foods did to Wild Oats, this is a welcomed acquistion. So long to ridiculous prices, pretentiousness, fake or unsubstantiated health claims, and buyers who beat up vendors and manufacturers. The Whole Foods business model never evolved properly and became a platform to lecture customers rather than respect them and their budgets. Most importantly, they never realized that overpriced “healtht” food that does not taste good has a finite number of customers. Promoting health benefits without sound and reputable research is simply wrong. Taste is king!