Food Assembly
Description
Nithin Coca:
"The first "Ruche," or Food Assembly, took place in La Fauga, France, near the city of Toulouse, in September 2011 and took off from there. It was a space where consumers could meet food producers and pick up produce that they had previously ordered online. Since then, it has grown into a robust network of independently operated farmers' markets organized via an online platform. The timing for the launch of Food Assembly was ideal. In France, campaigns against genetically modified food had been simmering for years, and along with a drought and other challenges affecting French farmers, there was a strong desire for new, sustainable alternatives. "I believe we arrived at the right time to market, there was a lot of media coverage of agricultural crisis [in France], and there was a need from consumers and producers to find the right solution," Melissa Martinay, a spokesperson for Food Assembly in Paris, France, says.
What made Food Assembly stand out from other similar projects was that it incorporated the concerns of not just consumers in its platform but also of farmers from the very start. "Other initiatives, they didn't necessarily focus on supporting the farmers first, and this was something that appealed a lot to both farmers, and consumers," Martinay says. In order to maintain that cooperative spirit, in November 2012, Food Assembly obtained a Collaborative and Social Certification (ESS, économie sociale et solidaire) from the French government, the same designation used by most cooperatives. Since then, it has also gotten a B-Corp certification. The organization's growth has been substantial, and today, there are over 900 Assemblies, connecting farmers, producers, and consumers, taking place every week, across Europe." (https://www.shareable.net/blog/how-food-assembly-created-a-sustainable-community-driven-food-sharing-system-in-europe)