In addition to dealing with weather issues and getting the most yield out of the acres they have, today’s independent farmer has to deal with finding ways to get their produce to the consumer.
“No family farmer is driving his truck up to the back of a Walmart today,” said Nick Carter, CEO of Market Wagon, an Indianapolis-based company he founded five years ago to create an eCommerce tool for farmers like himself.
Consumers can go to the Market Wagon website and order produce or artisanal foods from growers and producers in six surrounding counties in Tennessee and seven in Georgia, and once a week those products will be delivered direct to the consumer’s door.
It gives the producers one more avenue for selling what they produce and it gives the consumer who wants fresh food and who wants to support local farmers a way to participate.
Carter is a fourth-generation farmer and said the program is complementary to what is happening at weekend farmer’s markets such as the Chattanooga Market at First Horizon Pavilion.