Growers and Grocers

Consumers are becoming more conscious of the need to support local farmers. But large structures such as a hospitals or schools don’t always have time to seek out producers from their own area.

Rick Barrett of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reports that a former Whole Foods employee, Heather Hilleren, hopes to solve this problem with a “virtual farmer’s market” called Greenleaf Market. Its objective is to make it easier for farmers to link up with potential local buyers.

After 10 years working for Whole Foods, Hilleren became frustrated with a distribution system that made it difficult for farmers to find local markets for their products. Her new site claims to be “similar to an eBay for local food.”

“One of the biggest complaints farmers have is they don’t have time for marketing,” Hilleren said in the Journal Sentinel article. “They don’t have time to go to all of these restaurants, for example, and tell them what they have available every week.”

A similar initiative is also being launched in the St.Louis area, according to an article in the St.Louis Post-Dispatch. This time it’s a networking project linked to the University of Missouri.