About Us
The Vision:
To provide healthy, local, waste-free affordable food that dramatically reduces each customer’s carbon footprint and reinvents the food supply chain.
The Mission:
To build a business model that provides waste-free affordable local food items that reduces waste and lowers the carbon footprint of every customer. We will use lean processes to provide this food at the lowest cost possible for a sustainable competitive advantage. We will support the 3 pillars of sustainability (3 P’s); social (people), environment (planet) and economic (profit). We will minimize waste and recycling by growing and producing our own food locally and using reusable containers. We will pilot this new business model in the Greater Victoria area.
The Strategy:
We will reinvent the food supply chain by vertically integrating food growing, with food processing and delivery to the end consumer. This will allow us to manage the upstream and downstream supply chain to encourage our customers to eat seasonal food that matches our production. This will minimize waste and provide fresher food to customers. We applaud the great non-profits that are providing free meal and grocery items to low-income families, but, as they will tell you, this is not a scalable business model since it depends on grants and donations that are limited. Our business model has a customer revenue stream to make it financially sustainable and scalable. Our longer-term vision is to build many regenerative farming communities that will support their community members as well as surrounding residents. You can see more about this vision in on our Green Community webpage.
The Market:
The market gap that we are proposing to fill is providing waste-free affordable local food on Vancouver Island. Over 90% of the food on Vancouver Island is imported. This should be less than 50% in a region with the best weather in Canada for growing food year around. This wasteful, expensive and climate impacting food supply chain is unacceptable. Farmer’s Markets are great at providing local food, but it is a niche market for high-income customers. Studies show that people are spending more with restaurants (dine-in and take-out/delivery). We believe that offering meals at less than half the price of restaurants will move the market past the Early Adopter stage into the high-volume (low cost) Early Majority stage on the adoption curve. This is when economies of scale (mass market efficiencies) can be realized as the market goes from 16% up to 50% penetration.
Watch this 3 minute video on how "Local Food Can Save The World".
The Founder and Owner:
Darren Anderson
Darren has a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and an MBA. Darren has implemented solar energy projects and has over 20 years experience in process improvement, technology and supply chain projects. Darren is a certified Permaculture Designer (PDC) and has experience designing affordable sustainable communities including passive solar greenhouses and regenerative farms. Darren is also a University professor teaching Supply Chain and Green Business courses.