I hope this is the place to post this really interesting innovative idea for modern local agriculture:
The Farmery!
Check out the site:Current attempts to meet the demand for locally grown organic food within the national food distribution network have largely failed. There is not enough locally gown organic food to meet the demand because it is very difficult for grocery stores to manage the inconsistent supply of locally grown food and it is difficult for new growers to find the stepping stones to financial success. Grocery store marketing of locally grown food remains mundane with nothing more than simple signage, resulting in an identical shopping experience to conventional food, where it is left to compete on price. This retailing system makes it difficult for local growers to differentiate their product from produce sourced nationally from large, industrial farms.
The Farmery is an integrated retailing and growing system for locally grown food that raises the value of the produce through a stimulating retail experience and reduces the costs of the produce by consolidating the entire food distribution system. The team aims to make a neighborhood urban farm as common as the corner store. The Farmery is able to offer an entire diet of mushrooms, fish, greens and herbs for prices that meet or beat organic supermarket prices. The Farmery is constructed of stacked shipping containers and greenhouses oriented form a vertical farm and u-pick market in an urban neighborhood. The Farmery uses a proprietary growing system to grow edible plants vertically on the sides of the shipping containers. The interior space of the shipping container is used to cultivate gourmet mushrooms.
The basic business model of The Farmery is to reap higher margins from the crops grown at the Farmery by eliminating inventory loss, middle men, transportation and packaging costs and use these crops to compensate for the high variability in supply from small artisan farmers. The dynamic shopping experience of watching food grow as the customer is making their purchase decisions brings greater value to all the food sold in the store, making the Farmery an ideal place to showcase artisanal producers whose products get lost in stale supermarkets. The Farmery is ideal to sell locally grown produce and value added products because the consistent supply grown at the Farmery means that it does not require consistency from its suppliers.
http://www.thefarmery.com/