CORENET STORIES: FROM FARM TO BASKET IN KRAKóW
In Kraków, an online marketplace is connecting around 20 local farmers directly with consumers, and an advisor is helping the model grow across Poland.
Poland has more than a million farmers and nearly 40 million people. Yet buying food directly from farmers is still far from easy. This is where Marhefka Mobilna, the “mobile carrot”, comes in.
Rafal Serafin, from Iso-Tech, explains Marhefka, an online marketplace based in Kraków, where customers buy directly from farmers in and around the city, with no intermediary. Farmers manage their own offers and prices. Customers fill a basket with products from several farmers, make a single payment that the system sends directly to each producer, and then collect their order or have it delivered at home. Behind the scenes, Marhefka takes care of marketing, payments, invoicing and logistics.
Marhefka is part of Appetit, a network of local food markets now active in four locations in Poland, with an ambitious vision: to grow from four to 400. The key is turning the solutions developed in Kraków into a model other places can adopt, supported by a learning network.
But what does it take to make this happen? Rafal, the advisor who has supported Appetit in setting up and scaling local food markets, explains how software solutions and farmers’ cooperation are helping short food supply chains grow across the country.
Discover the full story in the video
