Rooted Farmers, LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase II: 8.12

Description

PROPOSAL ABSTRACTPhase II: Redesigning Floriculture Marketplace & Inventory Management Tools for SmallProduce Farms to Increase Accessibility and Reduce CostPD/PIs: Amelia Ihlo Annika Martell Justine McFarlandBackground: Rooted Farmers has developed a dynamic online platform that provides broadregional market access across wholesale and retail channels for small- and mid-sized farms. Ourcurrent platform services domestic floriculture and is differentiated by its capacity to seamlesslystandardize and aggregate supply across a fragmented rural supply chain via a dynamic database- driven solution that uniquely services the producer hub model. Launched nationwide in 2020 wehave since scaled to more than 530 farms 30 producer hubs/cooperatives and 3000 wholesalebuyers across the country with robust supplier hubs in northern New England New JerseyPennsylvania Kentucky Virginia North Carolina Missouri New Mexico Utah California andmore. Active users demonstrate a significant reduction in labor hours (75%+) with simultaneousrevenue growth (250% average increases) attributable to Rooted's streamlined purchasingprocess farm-tailored inventory management tools and a demonstrated network effect.Phase I Summary: Through Phase I the Rooted Farmers team made significant progress on auser-informed application to service other modes of specialty crop agriculture. Research includedthree main phases: First the team administered a quantitative survey to collect demographic dataand define major "pain points" for farmers; this survey identified that over 80% of participantsbelieve that their ability to attract new buyers and their ability to manage inventory across all farmproducts are key to their businesses' future success. Second we conducted qualitative interviewswith 20 small farms 23 buyers and 9 hub administrators serving more than 400 small- and mid- sized farms nationwide. Finally by integrating buyer and seller feedback as well as expertise fromkey industry partners the Rooted Team created static prototypes on which we collected feedbackfrom users. Our key discovery: the most critical first step to solving this problem at scale for small-and mid-sized farms is to begin with a foundational solution for food hubs.Phase II Plan: Now in Phase II our Rooted Farmers team will:(1) Complete the development of the functional online food-based platform;(2) Work with commercialization partners including agricultural experts and economists at theUniversity of New Hampshire's College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and Cornell's Collegeof Agriculture and Life Sciences transportation and logistics experts at Rensselaer PolytechnicInstitute and operators at food hubs farms and wholesale buyers across the nation to completeearly-stage real-world testing of the platform and collect success metrics in terms of labor hourssales profitability and quality of life for users; and(3) Scale-up efforts to expand the customer base and prepare for bringing the Rooted Farmersplatform to market.By the end of the two-year Phase II project we will have developed and be prepared to roll out atechnology product that empowers small- and mid-size farms to streamline operations and becomemore economically viable while also making our nation's food chain more resilient and robust.