How Indie Food Connects Local Farms With Nautical Commerce

Indie Food is a Canadian marketplace that delivers produce, baked goods, dairy, and meat from local farms to customers across Southern Ontario. It provides local farmers with marketing, sales, and distribution while creating convenience for buyers who want farmer's market goods delivered from the farm to their front door.

By launching their marketplace on Nautical, Indie Foods:

• Launched their marketplace in two months
• Onboarded 48 sellers and counting with over 700 products now available on their site
• Launched a second B2B marketplace within months of opening their initial B2C offering

The problem: Local farms are inaccessible

Entrepreneur Corey Berman recognized that Ontario's local food market had a problem: convenience. Corey saw independent food providers, like farmers, struggling to sell their food to urban consumers because they didn't have the resources to manage distribution. Yet, Corey identified a deep well of unmet demand for local farm goods. Urban consumers want to go to farmers' markets, but, as Corey said, "They have trouble getting there."

To fill the gap, Corey envisioned Indie Food, a platform to manage and consolidate the sales, pick-up, and safe delivery of farm goods. Ultimately, making local food delivery convenient for both farmers and buyers. 

The solution: A marketplace that connects farms to consumers

It was clear to Corey that the marketplace model was the best way to give farm fresh food the availability of Amazon but the feel of Etsy. Becoming a marketplace was also appealing because Indie Food could run asset-light. Corey wouldn't have to worry about holding inventory, having a storefront, or taking in receivables. 

To fulfill this vision, Corey needed a platform that would be:

• Intuitive for farmers to use
• Cost-effective to launch
• Scalable as the company expanded sellers and regions

Why Indie Food chose Nautical Commerce

Nautical's marketplace platform has all the functionality Indie Food requires to operate, including multi-vendor checkout, built-in fintech, a simple vendor experience, and robust product cataloging. For Corey, Nautical’s low-code marketplace builder is a key differentiator.

"The biggest [draw to Nautical] is that it is a no code solution. You get an out-of-the-box marketplace, which becomes a configuration problem rather than a build problem."

Nautical’s platform offers non-technical users a much easier path to creating a marketplace. Merchants configure the marketplace storefront using a drag-and-drop editor and manage operations with a comprehensive backend system — eliminating the need for custom coding. By building a marketplace on Nautical, Indie Food can focus on building its business, not its technology.

The outcomes so far: Speed, simplicity, and focus power Indie Food’s early success

In just nine weeks of operations, Indie Food sees a significant return on investment from launching on Nautical.

Early flywheel effects

Nautical's intuitive vendor management makes it easy for sellers to sell. For Indie Food, seller satisfaction pays dividends in early flywheel effects.

Indie Food has a healthy seller network of 48 farms and over 700 products, including everything from meat, dairy, and produce to ferments and bakery goods. This growth stems from word-of-mouth marketing driven by Indie Food's current sellers. 

"We're adding a new farm a day right now."

Low cost to launch

Nautical's comprehensive marketplace platform is significantly less expensive than custom-built alternatives. Instead of worrying about technology cost creep, Indie Food puts its time and budget into building supply and demand.

"By drastically lowering the cost to entry, Nautical makes it easier to get started. We aren't weighed down by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in development cost and time."

Focus on user experience, not technology

By using Nautical’s end-to-end platform, Corey doesn’t require a commerce platform or developers. This gives Corey the space to focus on growing the business. The result? 100 orders in the first nine weeks of operations.

"I can focus on the seller and the buyer problem and focus on building the marketplace with more sellers and more buyers rather than sweating all of the technological challenges."

Simple product management

The independent food providers on Indie Food report a simple, streamlined selling process where they can control inventory based on available supply. Nautical makes it easy for sellers to get on board and list their products — and Indie Food reports that the seller experience continues to improve.

"We're dealing with farmers that are in their 20s, and we're dealing with farmers that are in their 70s, and the fact that they're all able to do it is a testament to that simplicity at work."

Indie Food's vision for the future: Scaling the marketplace

Thanks to the early success of its consumer marketplace, Indie Food recently launched a second marketplace focused on wholesale. In the future, Indie Food plans to expand into other metropolitan areas, like the Lower Mainland around Vancouver. When Indie Food is ready, Nautical will scale with them. 

"It's surprisingly cost-effective to get started [in a new region.] Now that we have the infrastructure, adding to it is easy. Our cost to get going will be renting warehouse space, trucks, and hiring drivers, and then it's just a matter of getting enough orders through the system to cover the cost of any individual market." 

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