WNY FarmDrop Reopens March 2023

The WNY Based team of FarmDrop is excited to announce their expanded access in the region.

Visit: www.farmdrop.us/market/wny

WNY FarmDrop has been an integral part of the FarmDrop family since 2020, when Jennifer Noble, of Craigs Creamery and Hannah Semler, CEO of FarmDrop.us met on a ReFED.org Zoom call, where the only thing in common was that they had received an emergency COVID Fund grant from ReFED to support food waste prevention and food security in their respective States: NY and Maine.

FarmDrop, is an online farmers market serving communities in Maine and WNY, with plans to expand to more States by the end of 2023. In partnership with Craigs Creamery, we have for the last two years been designing a system that can work for farmers, makers, community members, and social impact programs in the WNY region. This year 2023, after a winter break and lots of planning, we are reopening WNY FarmDrop with a lot of excitement, as a twice a month shopping experience available in several locations from Perry, to Linwood, to Attica and Livonia, with Dansville, Geneseo and Fillmore as our newest options.

The incredible WNY FarmDrop management team, is what we are calling the “WNY five” – we aren’t messing around! We’ve got Jennifer Noble of Craigs Creamery, supporting the Linwood @ Dublin Corners Farm Brewery pickup, and the Linwood Turf @ Craigs Creamery pickup. We have Katie Carpenter of The Vintage Cow, supporting the Attica customers with a pickup location that just might happen to include a really great deal on ice cream – stay tuned! We have Kim Mathis, of Mathis Mercantile, who has partnered with Breezeway Barn in Perry to host the operational hub where all the orders get packed, but also where all the magic happens: Senior meals, FFA/4-H youth, and lots of community giving! Chelsea Johns, of John’s Family Homestead will be hosting the pickup at the old Stone Hill Greenhouses in Livonia, and supporting with incredible marketing skills.  Orders will be flying through our communities destined for pickups at the Fillmore Library, supported by Mary Beckendorf of Riverview Farms.  Aside from these five incredible women, leading the way for the future of food, there will be many other partners hosting pickup locations, serving our communities by offering the infrastructure needed to retain a direct connection between our farmers, our makers and our eaters. Get out of the way middlemen,  some pretty direct women are taking over the food scene in WNY.

We are not holding back, and you shouldn’t either, all you have to do is get the calendar straight. Every two weeks you get ready for the FarmDrop fun and games. You order from Friday to Tuesday, and pickup Thursday. To help us all keep it straight, we are choosing the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month for order pickup (If there is a 5th Thursday, well we skip that week too or just throw up a pop-up week).

At FarmDrop we have been developing an e-commerce tool for small farms, producers and makers for the last 12 years. Our system allows producers from different parts of WNY to collaborate around shared logistics and better reach  customers with the bounty of their foodshed, with greater choice, flexibility, and joy. While serving WNY farmers, and customers, we are also excited to be actively developing social programs together with WNY FarmDrop, to use technology to better respond to emergency food needs with more dignity, anonymity and choice”  – Hannah Semler, CEO FarmDrop.us.

FarmDrop is actively fundraising to make improvements to technology, fund social impact projects with partner organizations, and produce narrative short films that highlight the incredible people and stories behind the food grown, raised, made and enjoyed in WNY. Check out our FarmDrop Stories channel on Vimeo! For more information on fundraising projects and possibilities, email hannah@farmdrop.us.

The benefits of this partnership include.

  •   WNY products made easily available across community food systems
  •   Customer’s dollars stay directly within the community and region for a strengthened economy
  •   Food programs and food systems projects supported through donations programs

About FarmDrop: Together with our customers and food producers, FarmDrop is creating resilient, regenerative food networks.  We are dedicated to preserving the knowledge and sustainable stewardship of our rural landscapes by making it more convenient to choose the extraordinary food being produced in our own foodsheds. We make it possible for communities to buy, sell, and trade year-round, sharing the most nutritious, safe, and delicious foods available, which in turn protects our planet, restores our place-based culture, and builds food sovereignty. Our direct-to-consumer marketplaces are designed to better serve small-scale food artisans, increase community food access and customer connectivity, while sustaining local jobs and businesses. We have created a flexible e-commerce solution for rural communities left out of the online grocery shopping trend. The harvest-to-order model, collaborative marketing, and shared distribution systems reduce waste by ensuring customers get the freshest of what their neighbors make, while farmers and food artisans make the most efficient use of their labor, knowledge, products, and time. We are also working on Wholesale and EBT options to reach more markets and community members, and provide our producers with a greater opportunity.

We are committed to the communities we serve and therefore use a profit-sharing revenue model to support localized social and environmental causes, especially those that prevent food waste and feed hungry families. Our goal is to make FarmDrop online marketplaces available everywhere, and be drivers of our own future of food.

About Hannah Semler CEO of FarmDrop L3C >  Hannah has been working with Maine farms since early 2000s, supporting surplus distribution, gleaning for local food pantries, and developing technology to support food systems connectivity. Her work with FarmDrop.us since 2018 is a culmination of all this experience.

Visit: www.farmdrop.us/market/wny