Here's how Market Mobile works

• Friday to Sunday: Every week, Farm Fresh works with local producers to list food for sale online. Producers log onto the Market Mobile site and enter what foods are available this particular week, the quantity available, and the price per unit.
• Monday: Chefs, grocers and schools in the Providence area receive an e-mail reminder with information about "What's Fresh" on Market Mobile this week. They log onto the site to place orders for specific items from specific vendors (they specify they want Hill Orchards apples, not just apples).
• Tuesday: Orders, in total and also broken down by customer, are e-mailed to farmers for harvesting. Farmers sort orders by customer to bring to the delivery hub tomorrow.
• Thursday: Farms arrive at delivery hub and drop off orders in each customer's box. One delivery truck goes out with all of the orders. Farm Fresh pays farmers upfront. Farm Fresh invoices customers. There is no delivery fee for customers, but 10% of sales go to cover the costs of the Market Mobile delivery. (We anticipate that the shared deliveries will actually save individual farmers more in labor and gas than this built-in cost. The % is based on costs associated with a similar program in New York.) Buyers can choose to pick up instead of drop off.

For more information please contact Jen at 401-529-4952 or jen@farmfreshri.org.

About the Market Mobile pilot year

Inspired by the seasons, fresh flavors and face-to-face relationships with producers, many chefs prefer to purchase locally. However, many lament the fact that getting local food isn't always easy. Chefs cannot spend a lot of time away from the kitchen driving directly to the farms to pick up various orders. Farmers would love to sell to more restaurants, groceries and schools, but do not always have the time and labor available to make deliveries. That's why Farm Fresh is piloting a new program called Market Mobile, to facilitate buying relationships between RI producers and business buyers and institutions.

January to May 2009
Market Mobile is a pooled farm-to-business delivery system that is driven by the needs of farmers and buyers. Market Mobile delivered the wide variety of goods available from 22 local producers at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market to chefs, schools and groceries. It was possible thanks to collaboration with the RI Department of Health, RI DEM Division of Agriculture and Narragansett Creamery. Orders were placed on Wednesdays and then sorted and delivered from the Wintertime Farmers' Market on Saturdays. The first weekly order was January 10, 2009. Market Mobile began during the winter season to reduce logistical variables during the pilot. For the winter pilot, we capped the number of buyers (delivery sites) at 10-12, all in Providence.

June 2009
We are transitioning to order days on Mondays and delivery days on Thursdays so that Market Mobile works better for chefs' schedules. Orders will be sorted and delivered from East Providence from the warehouse of WJ Canaan, previously our RI Royal Potato partner. Deliveries this month will still be limited to Providence to ensure quality service during this transition period. Orders minimums are now $100, but there is still no fee for delivery.

July 2009
We are on track to expand delivery service to Newport and possibly the West Bay and South County, depending on customer clusters.

Market Mobile goals

• To increase sales and consumption of locally grown products.
• To rebuild a more efficient local food distribution system, saving farmers and chefs, time, gas and money.