Which E-Commerce Platform is Right for Me?

Date:

Thursday, February 3, 2022

Time: 

6:00pm – 7:30pm

Location:

Virtual Online Session  

Cost:

Free

Related Program(s):

LINK TO February 3, 2022 Workshop Recording

LINK TO: E-Commerce Platform Fact Sheet and Price Guide

Additional Resources:

Join farmers and Food Hub leaders in a panel discussion of the pro's and cons of E-Commerce platforms, the dearth of a “perfect software system” for multi-grower and multiple market outlets, and glean experiences from the field.

Presenters:

Kate Donald is owner of Stout Oak Farm, a Certified Organic farm in Brentwood, New Hampshire.  Her farm grows five acres of vegetables for a CSA, farm store, wholesale buyers, and home delivery.  Kate is also a co-founder/owner of Three River Farmers Alliance, a farmer-owned aggregate food hub operating in southeastern New Hampshire since 2014.

Beck Ringle (they/them/theirs), is Executive Director of Myers Produce.  Myers Produce is a regional distributor based out of hubs in Northern Vermont, Western Massachusetts, and New York City.  Myers sources exclusively from Northeast-based farmers and producers, and delivers to a wide array of customers throughout the region.  Beck joined the Myers team in 2017, after several years of experience in farming and in wholesale produce sales in California.  With a fully-remote administrative team, a fleet of seven vehicles, and operations spanning five states, Myers’ software priorities are flexibility, transparency, and reliability.  Beck will provide an overview of the software Myers Produce currently uses, as well as various trials through the years.

Matt Crawford is the Data Systems Manager at Boston Area Gleaners/Boston Food Hub.  Matt has spent many years ensuring that the data systems at Boston Area Gleaners can keep up with their evolving program needs.  In the last year, he has developed and launched a Salesforce app for the Boston Food Hub (a program of Boston Area Gleaners) to track purchase orders, sales orders, and manage inventory, as well as track the intricacies of repacking the Food Hub and BAG's produce and Just Eats hunger relief boxes.  His focus has been on matching technology to the on-the-ground process flow of BAG and the Boston Food Hub and creating Dashboards and Reports for management, but he looks forward to integrating Salesforce into Boston Food Hub's website, including an online availability list/e-commerce site.

Ginger Turner is the Operations Administrator at New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. Her experience includes running the multi-farm New Entry Food Hub, and a 1400 member single farm CSA.  She has been instrumental in full adoption and rollout of New Entry's Local Food Marketplace and is now adept at managing a large bureaucracy's vendor payment systems for the 30 producers a year who sell to the Food Hub.