Field to fork - Local initiative
Mark Taylor meets a Shropshire couple whose love of fresh local produce led them to set up their own online business.
The simple frustration of not having the time to get hold of fresh local produce for their own consumption led food lovers Tim and Sharon Nichols to launch their own online business, quite literally taking food straight from field to fork. "We live in the heart of Shropshire and were commuting and travelling for hours each day. Because we were getting home late every night we just couldn't get hold of all this great food that's on our own doorstep," says Sharon. "The only way we could do grocery shopping was through the internet and supermarkets. We didn't want to have to buy food from supermarkets so that's how the idea was born."
Tim and Sharon had both worked in retail IT before - Tim with Laura Ashley and Sharon for Next's e-commerce site. As foodies they had seen the growing demand for local Shropshire produce through the thriving farmers' markets and summer food festivals and could spot a gap in the market to take great local produce straight from the producer to the catering trade. In November 2003, they launched a pilot scheme for the website ourlocalfood. co.uk, enabling pubs, hotels, restaurants, cafés and food retailers to order direct from the producers via the internet. The aim was to deliver quality food from small producers direct to the buyer, and ourlocalfood.co.uk now has a roster of 20 award-winning Shropshire producers supplying catering businesses within the county.
Products range from locally-smoked game and Shropshire bacon, to organic vegetables and local spring water. With ourlocalfood.co.uk's small team looking after availability, delivery times, invoicing and documentation, the website has been designed to be very user-friendly. "It's been designed very cleverly so that it can work out suppliers' availability," says the marketing manager, Louise Dale. "Suppliers can put in which days their produce is available and how much they can produce, and buyers can put in what they want to order and the earliest delivery dates. "It should require little manual intervention but that's not to say we never want to talk to our customers, because they're free to call us - and they do. "We ask for a nominal monthly subscription from the buyer so that we don't have to charge the supplier more"
It's a change of habit for a lot of caterers as they are used to getting on the phone and sorting out their orders that way. "We don't take ownership of the goods. The pub or restaurant pays the price the producer asks. We don't put any margin on, either. Instead we take a small percentage from the supplier, based on the value of the product. "Once the buyers start using the system they soon realise that it's simpler this way. Charging a subscription gets people to use it more often, rather than using it once and saying it's too much hassle to remember their log-in. If people are paying a small amount, they'll get over that initial hurdle and use it more." According to Louise, one of the aims of the website is to "move things into the 21st century", although she concedes that some small producers and farmers may not even own a computer, let alone know how to use the internet. "We have some suppliers who don't have internet access and have no idea how to use a computer so we do all the administration for them. If an order comes through we'll send it on as a text message to their phone so they can get it ready to be collected."
One of the producers to have benefited from selling produce via the website is Alan Ball, of the award-winning Shropshire smokery, Bings Heath, near Shrewsbury. Alan specialises in smoked fish, poultry and game, all produced by using traditional smoking methods. Although Bings Heath Smokery has its own website and sells its produce at food fairs and festivals, he says that using ourlocalfood.co.uk has already widened his customer base. "We've grown with it in many ways, and we've picked up new customers through it. More and more pubs and restaurants list suppliers on their menus and so it evolves. "People want to know where food is coming from these days and people are supporting local producers more and more." With just one delivery van and with Tim doing all the deliveries himself, the scheme only covers Shropshire at the moment, but there are already plans to expand to other counties, and possibly nationwide.
The company has also recently launched a similar scheme for consumers called localfoodonline.co.uk which takes the farmers' market concept and makes Shropshire produce available to people all over the country via chilled overnight delivery. "We want everyone to enjoy the diversity of the fantastic food available in Shropshire, while supporting the rural economy and keeping food traditions alive," says Tim. "Delivering food direct from producer to consumer not only means food is as fresh as it can possibly be, it also has environmental benefits by cutting down on unnecessary food miles."
Contacts: Our Local Food Tel: 01694 723669 Web: www.ourlocalfood.co.uk or www.localfoodonline.co.uk e-mail: fnyrf@bheybpnysbbq.pb.hx
