Farming goes digital

Farmigo produce orders

What if there were a way to combine the variety and personalization of the farmers’ market with the convenience of a CSA?

Farmigo is the first online farmer’s market to connect communities - such as workplaces, schools and community centers - directly with local farms to provide a personalized online marketplace for local, fresh-from-harvest food. The first food communities are rolling out in San Francisco and New York, with Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Chicago and Philadelphia soon to follow.

CSAs (consumer supported agriculture) and farmer’s markets have been growing at a rate of 40 percent annually for the last decade, however today less than one percent of the U.S. population purchases produce directly from farms. Today, according to market research firm Mintel, more than half of consumers believe that it is more important to buy local produce than organic, which often travels an average of 1,500 miles to the supermarket. Selling directly to consumers means that farms reap 80 percent of the sale of the food, versus 9 - 20 percent with traditional grocers.

Farmigo, started in 2009, today services more than 300 farms and has connected them to over 100,000 families. Farmigo recently became a certified B Corporation, joining a growing roster of over 600 companies including Patagonia, Method and Etsy.

Carrot Creative, a new media marketing agency in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, was one of the first companies to launch a food community and have adopted the program into its wellness benefits.

With $10 million in total funding, Farmigo is poised to disrupt the food system that is ripe for change.

Benzi Ronen is founder and CEO of Farmigo. After designing software solutions for more than a decade,  he is taking on the monumental task of disrupting the industrialized food system.