We would like to hear from you so have your say on our [forum], all opinions welcome.
I think veg boxes offer what I call the big Mac and diet coke syndrome, what I mean is that most people that purchase a veg box be it once a week or once per month probably get 90% of their shopping from the supermarket and spend 10% on social / environmental food like veg boxes.
This may help shoppers sleep better at night and may well be more flavorful, but veg boxes will ultimately have a limited impact on social / environmental issues (The diet coke is better than a full fat coke but if you keep eating the Big Mac it’s not going to matter much).
I also believe that part of the reason why supermarkets are so successful is the fact that they offer a one stop shop i.e. customers can get all their groceries in one place. In fact anyone that knows anything about design will know that good solutions are based upon delivering what customers want or need and not on what you want to sell or have to hand.
I believe that most customers want one stop shops and that is why there
are just as many organic box schemes going bust as there are being created,
the bottom line is it’s a nice idea but not a viable alternative
to supermarket shopping.
The concept of a virtual organisation is relatively new and there is plenty of discussion as to its definition. I don’t mean to start a debate now, so let’s just say it’s an organisation that exists almost entirely in cyber space it is created by combing member business. In our case our virtual organisation is a food supply chain so our member business are food businesses, primary producers, local haulers and wholesalers with Larder Bytes acting as the glue that holds it all together.
Larder Bytes is a virtual organisation because this type of structure gives us a highly flexible, dynamic and responsive framework. We believe that by being a virtual organisation we can more effectively tackle social and environmental food supply chain issues. For example all traditional relaters (online or not) sell food from stock, Larder Bytes does not have a stock room, we sell food by monitoring our members business stock levels.
Now think of all the business elements used by a supermarket or even a farm shop for that matter, which we don’t need. No refrigerators, No car parks, No delivery vans taking food too and from storage, No forklifts, No deliver depot, No stock that ends up in the bin because it didn’t sell in time and so on. In fact, food that is ordered at Larder Bytes is still with the primary producer (sometimes still in the ground) and once an order is made we work out the simplest and most direct way to get food from the primary producer to your door.
This is just one quick example but there are many more benefits to being
a virtual organisation and I hope it’s clear to see how, by being
a virtual organisation we can dramatically reduce the food supply chain’s
carbon footprint amongst other benefits.
There is a lot of merit in delivering food in this way, customers are able to purchase form producers cutting out a lot of the middle men and it is all the better for being on a local level.
The down side to this is that there is often a limited operational area due to disruption and availability of produce. Another point to make is that shared running costs can be high and the cost of which is passed on to customers.
I think co–operative online shops are a good idea and resemble
a small scale Larder bytes network. Larder Bytes is similar to a network
of co–operative online shops with each shop trading with each other
as well as their individual customers.
Larder Bytes is about more than delivering food, we believe that through
addressing issues within the food supply chain we can have a significant
impact on a wide range of social / environmental problems. We are all
about action rather than hot air and we believe that in order to effect
change there must be viable and stainable alternatives to the status
quo. Therefore we are continually working on projects that deliver change
for the better. Unfortunately we are growing tried of people trying
to copy (steal) our ideas and pass them off as their own, so we are
only able to give you the briefest outline of some of the more recent
project we have been working on. And whilst we are central to all of
these projects we cannot take sole credit, as we often work in collaboration
with others including social organisations, academics and other commercial
businesses.