La Ruche qui dit Oui

78 points by jpkenobi 10 years ago | 33 comments

lotharbot 10 years ago |

Summary: this is something akin to a farmers market with pre-orders. Consumers order local produce, farmers and consumers all arrive at a pre-determined location and time for delivery, and farmers keep most of the money (with a small cut going to the location owners, and a cut going to the company that handles all the market-making/financial transactions.)

At present, this exists only in Europe, but it sounds like a US expansion might be possible.

codingdave 10 years ago | |

No need. CSAs have existed throughout the US for a long time. Wrapping them under a single brand and adding in a middle man to handle the transactions doesn't really add value to the consumer.

lotharbot 10 years ago | | |

I hadn't heard the term "CSA" before. Interesting.

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

morsch 10 years ago |

I just tried it, the whole process is a bit confusing. There's no store/location ("assembly") in my city (Germany), but my s/o lives in a somewhat more hip city which has a few.

To get any details for any individual assembly -- including finding out what's for sale! -- you need to register (full name, password and email). After registering, you still need to "join" each assembly individually before you see any goods, which feels a bit weird: I thought I was shopping for groceries, apparently I'm now in some sort of club. Or rather three clubs: the first two I tried had nothing for sale, which almost had me give up, but the third one does have some stuff:

A variety of vegetables, ranging from very to extremely expensive, think 2 to 4x of what you'd pay in a regular supermarket -- I guess they're artisinal or something. But the potatoes I bought earlier today were the same kind, also sourced from the region, and still cost half of what they're asking. They do have a huge variety of tomatoes, and I'd be happy to pay 3x the regular price for a tomato with an actual taste.

Apart from the veggies, that assembly also has wine and bread for prices that are average for good quality stuff, and overpriced chutneys and condiments, the kind you only buy as a gift.

This is not a terribly convincing display, to be honest, but I imagine the experience is very different in France, where they seem to have a much higher concentration of assemblies. Not completely different, though, since I can't imagine they have any chance of competing on price -- the regular food retail chain is bound to be ruthlessly efficient in that respect.

The whole concept has the huge downside that you have to pre-order AND be at the assembly location at a specific time, compared to the supermarket (no pre-order required, open all the time), the farmer's market (no pre-order required, open more often than any single assembly) or, I guess, web deliveries (though I don't intend to order a tomato from the web, ever).

jtheory 10 years ago | |

There's one not far from me, so I may look into it. Well, 20 min... far enough that "drove 40 minutes to pick up local produce" starts to sound dumb, though. I'm in central France.

But in context -- it's not hard to find local produce, including plenty of local, organic produce, without relying on a specially-organized meetup point. The closest large town to where I live has about 8K people; that's big enough for them to have a (smallish) dedicated organic/specialty grocery store, and street markets every weekend, year-round, with a few organic farms selling their produce there.

If I drive into Limoges, there are several large grocery stores that sell only organic produce, and highlight local produce.

These are all noticeably more expensive than shopping at a regular Super-U or Casino/Geant (big chains), but the selection and quality is quite good.

I'll check into the Ruche near here to see what it's like; but if it's the same farmers we can buy from directly at the weekend market, I'm not sure I see the point.

Edit: "276 Membres"... Huh -- that's significant. Oddly, the producers include a "Safranier", i.e., a saffron farmer. I didn't think that could even grow here.

yamamaste 10 years ago | |

I use La Ruche in Lyon, France. They have several assembly locations across the city. I think it is more expensive that usual market but I suppose it is worth it. For example, a 1.4kg chicken is about 14€. In the market I would buy it for 9 or 10€, so it is not that overpriced, considering that the La Rouche chicken, supposedly, saw some sun's light in its lifetime.

I may seem not very convinced, but I do like it. Each Thursday I go and get my stuff, taste some local brewery beer and chit-chat with the producers. Oh and the bread from the bread lady is awesome. Full disclosure: My girlfriend started all the let's buy La Ruche and Marechal-Fraicheur stuff... I don't think I would have done it by myself.

nyandaber 10 years ago | |

The assembly thing is indeed annoying, they did it this way because it's a franchise model. Anyone can request to open an assembly in their area, providing they fit the criterias. You're in charge of contacting farmers and animating the assembly, and you split the profits with La Ruche Qui Dit Oui.

Since I'm living in Paris, I have one quite close to my place, with plenty of choice. Prices are expensive compared to normal groceries, but veggies are mostly organics and the price is on par or cheaper compared to normal organic seller. The taste is great, it's better than most farmer's market and much better than the usual groceries. Can't eat that everyday because of the price though!

InclinedPlane 10 years ago |

This is pretty common in the US, it generally goes under the name "community supported agriculture" (CSA) or "farm-shares". People usually pay a yearly fee or pay a monthly subscription and get a weekly box of produce and whatnot mostly from one or a few local farms.

stangeek 10 years ago | |

No, it's not the same at all. Here you get to select online the product you want to buy, you are not "forced" to receive a box of produce. And there is no monthly fee at all, you just pay for what you buy.

InclinedPlane 10 years ago | | |

Apologies if I elided mention of how they are different, I didn't mean to do so. This sort of thing is a pretty big innovation and offers the potential to increase the reach of direct to consumer local farm produce sales.

yenda 10 years ago |

I have been using this service for a year. It's nice. Definitely more expensive than going to the supermarket but the food is way better. We have to eat less and more healthy anyway.

vinceguidry 10 years ago |

> How can we get back to a time when the food we eat is produced nearby, is high quality, and is healthy?

That time never existed. Factory farms and food processing have historically represented huge improvements in safety as well as affordability and availability. Not that this isn't a great idea, just that it's not a return to any kind of wonderful world of plenty.

gt565k 10 years ago | |

What?

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

jpatokal 10 years ago | | |

He's not saying that variations of "a marketplace that connects farmers to people who want farm fresh food" doesn't exist. He's saying that this mythical utopia where everybody ate locally-produced, high-quality, healthy food didn't exist.

julioademar 10 years ago |

We built http://www.attmatr.com with a similar philosophy. The difference is we strive to actually be farm-to-table as we deliver to the customer's doorstep - and our platform caters to B2B too. We're only in Denmark at the moment but will soon expand abroad.

Kototama 10 years ago |

In France there is the AMAP association (http://www.reseau-amap.org/) which shares some of the same goals, but for non-profit and with a focus on organic products.

draven 10 years ago | |

The AMAPs are subscription based, and you get a box (panier) with whatever the farmer happens to have this particular week.

Here you can actually order things.

In the case of AMAPs, the nice thing about not knowing what you'll receive in advance is that it forces you to learn a certain number of recipes so you'll be able to cook whatever you get.

drewm1980 10 years ago | | |

We are part of a similar subscription based system here in Belgium. Prices are somewhere between supermarket normal and organic. Mostly local, but some stuff is shipped in when the local crops really suck. Indeed forces you to learn to cook and enjoy whatever weird stuff happens to be growing well locally. This results in less effort deciding what to buy, but more effort figuring out what to do with whatever you received. I really don't think giving consumers ~more choice is going to help solve the problem of getting people to eat whatever is growing locally.

highCs 10 years ago |

I'm happy to read a french startup has access to top talents outside Europe. I wish them the best.

Oh and it's here: https://laruchequiditoui.fr/en

brianbreslin 10 years ago |

Who in the US is doing similar? I read an article about japanese fishermen doing this recently on wsj

http://www.wsj.com/articles/startups-upend-japans-fish-marke...

bshimmin 10 years ago |

Is the name a play on "La vache qui rit"?

jtheory 10 years ago | |

I'd assume not -- because la vache qui rit is sort of the French version of American cheese (a factory-produced cheese-based product, not an actual cheese), so it's not really the sort of thing they'd want to be associated with.

The name is ringing a vague bell -- maybe there's a childrens' story about a talking hive? No idea, but a quick google didn't find the answer either, so I can't say for sure.

neutralino1 10 years ago | | |

Most French people love La Vache qui Rit. They don't eat it as adults but it revives memories of their school trip lunches.

fchay 10 years ago | |

Actually the producer can set a minimum revenue under which it's not profitable for him (then he doesn't have to deliver). When the minimum is reached, the Ruche says "yes" to the producer -> thus the name :)

For french speaking people, this video explain it: https://vimeo.com/17644285

agumonkey 10 years ago | |

French article interviewing the founder, http://www.youminga.org/?p=530, no details about the origin of the name, the jury is still out.

lejoko 10 years ago | |

Definitely not (I'm french).