FoodTrade - Local Food Supply Chain Platform

The Venture

Founded FoodTrade in 2011 as CEO and ran it until 2015. Built a data-driven B2B platform to map and reconnect fragmented local food supply chains, helping farmers find buyers and enabling restaurants/retailers to source locally while building economic resilience in regional food systems.

The Problem

The UK food system faces a critical infrastructure breakdown:

Broken Supply Chains: Industrial consolidation pushed small producers into long, opaque supply chains (farmer → aggregator → wholesaler → distributor → retailer). This extracted value from rural economies and made local procurement nearly impossible.

Discovery Failure: A restaurant wanting local beef didn’t know which nearby farms produced it. A farmer with excess inventory couldn’t easily find buyers beyond their existing relationships.

Trust & Traceability Gaps: Food scandals (horsemeat, contamination) revealed that supply chains were so fragmented that traceability was impossible. Buyers couldn’t verify provenance.

Economic Resilience: Regions lost food sovereignty—importing products they could produce locally because coordination infrastructure didn’t exist.

What I Built

FoodTrade was “LinkedIn for local food and farmers” (Fast Company), mapping supply chain relationships and reconnecting them through structured data:

Supply Chain Mapping

• Database of UK food producers, processors, distributors, and buyers with structured product catalogs
• Searchable profiles: “Find lamb producers within 50 miles of Edinburgh who sell wholesale”
• Network visualization showing existing relationships and gaps in regional supply chains

Intelligent Matchmaking

• Automated recommendations connecting compatible trading partners
• Filtering by certifications (organic, Red Tractor), delivery logistics, and volume requirements
• Trust signals (verified members, transaction history, peer endorsements)

Transaction Infrastructure

• Digital catalog management for producers (upload products, set prices, manage inventory)
• Inquiry and negotiation tools for buyers
• Order history and relationship management

Data Insights for Policymakers

• Aggregated supply/demand mapping for regional food planning
• Identified food production gaps (“this region imports all its vegetables but has suitable farmland”)
• Policy advocacy using data to support local food infrastructure investment

Recognition & Validation

Media Coverage

• WIRED Top 100 EU Startups - Recognized as one of Europe’s most promising technology ventures
• Fast Company: Featured as “a LinkedIn for local food and farmers”
• “This technology could transform the way food networks operate.” - HRH Prince Charles

Speaking & Advisory

• Invited keynote at HRH Prince Charles’ Langenberg Forum on Sustainable Regional Food Systems: “How technology will help rewire the food system”
• TEDxOxbridge: “The Great Feast” - vision for reconnected food systems
• Evidence to the House of Lords on sustainable food systems
• Syngenta HQ briefing for C-suite on how tech, data, and connectivity can reshape agrifood
• London Food Board member - Guided London’s food policy for social and environmental benefit

Funding & Partnerships

• £150K raised from Wayra (Telefónica’s accelerator) and GeoVation (Ordnance Survey’s geospatial tech program)
• Prize funding from food system innovation competitions
• Partnerships with Soil Association, National Trust, and regional food hubs

Tech Stack

• Platform: Ruby on Rails with PostgreSQL
• Geospatial: PostGIS for location-based search and supply chain mapping
• Search: Elasticsearch for complex product and producer discovery
• Data Visualization: D3.js for supply chain network graphs
• APIs: Integration with Defra (government agricultural data) and certification bodies

Lessons Learned

Network Effects Require Critical Mass in Regions FoodTrade faced the classic marketplace cold-start problem: buyers needed producers, producers needed buyers. Unlike national platforms (eBay), we needed density in specific geographies (can’t source local food from 200 miles away). We should have launched region-by-region (start with Cornwall, reach saturation, expand) instead of going national too fast. Lesson: local network effects require hyper-focused geographic launches.

Farmers Aren’t Digital Natives (But Their Kids Are) Initial UX assumed tech-savvy users. Farmers in their 50s-60s struggled with complex onboarding. Breakthrough came when we realized younger farmers (who’d inherited operations) were comfortable with platforms. Targeting “next generation farmers” accelerated adoption. Lesson: find the digitally native cohort within traditional industries.

Transaction Volume Matters More Than Listings We focused on recruiting producers (supply-side growth) but underinvested in onboarding high-volume buyers (restaurants, food hubs, institutions). A single institutional buyer (hospital, school district) purchasing £50K/month created more value than 100 individual consumers browsing. Lesson: in B2B marketplaces, focus on high-transaction buyers first.

Food Is Emotional, Not Just Transactional We built transaction infrastructure (catalogs, ordering) but underestimated the social layer. Farmers wanted to know who they were selling to and why buyers valued local food. Adding buyer stories and producer profiles (with photos, farm visits) increased conversion. Lesson: even B2B platforms need storytelling, especially in values-driven sectors.

Policy Infrastructure Matters As Much As Tech The biggest barrier wasn’t technology—it was policy. Planning regulations made farm-based processing facilities difficult to approve. Procurement rules favored large suppliers over small regional producers. We eventually pivoted toward policy advocacy (using our data to influence government), but this required different skills than startup building. Lesson: in highly regulated sectors, policy change is part of the product roadmap.

Incumbents Move Slowly, But They Move Large distributors initially ignored us. But once FoodTrade gained traction, they started acquiring regional food hubs and launching their own “local sourcing” programs (often as greenwashing). We lacked the resources to compete with incumbents who could subsidize local programs while maintaining national scale. Lesson: disruptive platforms need defensibility before incumbents wake up.

Why It Ended

FoodTrade ran into structural challenges:

1. Marketplace Density: Achieving regional critical mass required capital we couldn’t raise (pre-product-market fit)
2. Unit Economics: Small transaction sizes (£200 farmer-to-restaurant orders) made marketplace fees insufficient to cover operations
3. Incumbent Response: Large distributors added “local sourcing” offerings, leveraging existing relationships and logistics
4. Founder Capacity: Solo technical founder without co-founder for sales/business development limited growth velocity

We wound down operations in 2015, but the vision remains valid. FoodTrade helped validate that:

• Demand exists for local food sourcing infrastructure
• Data can reveal hidden supply chain opportunities
• Regional food resilience requires digital coordination tools

Lasting Impact

While FoodTrade didn’t achieve scale, it influenced:

Policy Development: Data we generated informed government discussions about local food infrastructure investment. Advisors cited our supply chain mapping in regional food policy.

Ecosystem Building: Demonstrated viability of tech-enabled local food networks, inspiring similar platforms (OLIO, Farmdrop, Neighbourly).

Personal Growth: First venture where I was sole founder/CEO, learning fundraising, team building, and navigating policy landscapes. These skills directly informed later ventures (Represent.me, Athena Blue).

Systems Thinking: Deep dive into supply chain resilience, regional economics, and multi-stakeholder coordination that shaped my approach to infrastructure platforms in other sectors.

The quote from Prince Charles still resonates: “This technology could transform the way food networks operate.” The conditional was correct—transformation requires not just technology, but market conditions, policy support, and coordination capital. FoodTrade taught me that infrastructure plays are marathons, not sprints.