From the producer to your table: a shorter chain

When you buy a tomato, a head of lettuce or a kilo of potatoes, you almost never know which farm it comes from or how many times it changed hands. This article explains what changes when that chain gets shorter, for your neighborhood and for the people who produce.

How many hands touch what you eat?

In the typical chain, a product goes from the farm to someone who collects it, then to a wholesaler, then to a greengrocer or a supermarket, and finally to your home. Each step adds transport, handling, storage and risk, and each one needs to earn something to keep going. We look at what each link costs, and how far prices drift apart, in Middleman margins.

We all know the result: the people who produce and the people who buy almost never meet, and neither sees how the final price is set.

What neighbors gain

• Freshness. What reaches your home comes from producers in the area and travels a shorter way.
• Knowing where it comes from. Each offer shows who the producer is.
• A clear price. You see the final price from the start, before you join an offer.
• Money that stays in the area. A good part of what you pay reaches nearby producers.

What producers gain

• They set the price. The producer decides the price at which they supply each offer.
• They see demand before delivering. When an offer closes, they receive the orders sorted by neighborhood and know how much to bring and where.
• They keep their route. They deliver on their own route, within each offer's areas and delivery window.
• They don't collect payments one by one. BarrioMercados charges each buyer, issues the invoices and pays them by bank transfer for what they delivered.

Why it is hard to do alone

Many producers already sell over WhatsApp. It works with a few customers, but it is hard to grow that way: orders arrive in a jumble, each payment is checked by hand, each delivery is arranged separately and demand changes from one week to the next. On the other side, neighbors don't know what is available or when.

How it works with BarrioMercados

1. A producer in the area creates an offer with product, price, quantity and dates. BarrioMercados reviews it and publishes it.
2. Neighbors in the offer's areas see it and join from their phone, with the final price in view.
3. Payment is by SINPE Móvil, and BarrioMercados issues the electronic invoice.
4. When the offer closes, each area's orders are combined into a single order for the producer.
5. We deliver in your area's delivery window, to the address you registered.

In those offers, the one selling to you is BarrioMercados: the producer is just one step away, but the sale, the payment and answering for any problem are on us. We explain it in detail in how BarrioMercados works.

Start in your neighborhood

We are starting in the district of Concepción, in La Unión, Cartago. If you produce in the area, tell us what you make on the page for producers. If you are a neighbor, get to know BarrioMercados and tell your neighborhood about it.