Context
In the province of Québec, four local markets — Les Choux gras, La Chèvre et le Chou, Du terroir à l’Armoir and Les Radieux — have joined forces to tackle a common challenge: competing with major retailers like supermarkets and Amazon. Faced with a limited product range and difficulties in attracting wholesale buyers, they have embraced an innovative solution: creating a unified online marketplace experience.
With this approach, supported by Startin’blox’s open-source technologies and the Beckn protocol, these markets can now offer a consolidated product selection. This strengthens their appeal to both individual consumers and wholesale buyers while promoting more sustainable local supply chains.
The problem
- Wholesale buyers wish to source from local markets, but they often don’t encounter the quantities they are looking for
- Local markets have a limited product offering, which limits their attractiveness for the end consumer and competitiveness against supermarkets
The solution
The solution these 4 local food markets came up with is to be perceived as a unified market online. Their product offerings and their respective quantities are made available to the end consumer in a unified shopping experience and, as if she was shopping in a bigger market, with more products and in bigger quantities.
Expected outcome of the project
- Increased attractiveness for end users: With a consolidated offering, local markets can better compete with large retailers and satisfy the needs of their individual buyers.
- Increased attractiveness for wholesale buyers: Wholesale buyers will have access to the quantities that they need, making local food markets a viable procurement option for them.
Technical Solution by Startin’blox
Technology Used
The Beckn Protocol: To ensure the interoperability across the ecommerce platforms of the four markets, we have implemented the Beckn protocol. Proven effective in the mobility sector in India, powering more than 4 million transactions per month, this protocol facilitates seamless transactions across different platforms, e.g. buying a product on platform A that actually comes from platform B. Beckn enables products from each local food market to be sold on an extra ecommerce platform deployed by the city of Lévis.
Deliverables
- Stock management software:Locavora is the software already utilized by these local food markets to run their operations. It allows them to do:
- Stock management
- Retail
- Fulfillment tracking
By making the stock management feature of Locavora compatible with the Beckn protocol, we enabled local food hubs to make their products available on several online marketplaces, instead of just their own.
- A unified marketplace: The city of Lévis has developed a marketplace that sources its products directly from the local food hubs thanks to the Beckn protocol. This marketplace aggregates the food products within a unified platform where the citizens of the city of Lévis can shop local food products in a user-friendly way, all of them in one place.
Challenges faced
We are one of the first organizations in the world to implement the Beckn protocol on a real world pilot, based on live data with 4 different market players and a city. As the protocol is still young, the amount of open source code available is limited, and not always well documented. We had to do a lot by ourselves, with the support of the Beckn Foundation.
Partners
You can find here the list of our partners on this project.
- Financial partners:
- Technical partners:
- Locavora is an open source ecommerce platform dedicated to local food hubs and Locavora is powering the local food markets involved in this project.
- Beckn Protocol is an open specification developed in India, enabling several websites to sell each other’s products, in a peer-to-peer fashion, with no intermediary.
- Strategic partner: Open Food Network is an international network of local food hubs totalling 11,5 M$ of annual food products transactions. Open Food Network is expanding the open retail network that we initiated in other areas of Canada and the United States.
- Local food hubs:
- Les Choux gras: This project, launched by enthusiasts of permaculture and sustainable development, aims to revitalize the southern Bellechasse region socially, environmentally, and economically. Born from consultations in 2015, it took shape as a solidarity cooperative based in Saint-Damien-de-Buckland, featuring a model permaculture site.
- La Chèvre et le Chou: The grocery store, founded in 2016 by four passionate individuals, offers organic products in partnership with the “Aux Sources” shop in St Sauveur de Montagut. For the past seven years, it has remained committed to providing high-quality local products at affordable prices, following an ethical approach. As an association, it prioritizes horizontal governance and strong connections with its members to foster a solidarity-based economy.
- Du terroir à l’Armoire: “Du terroir à l’armoire” is an online shopping platform specializing in the sale of local and bulk products. It offers a wide range of fresh, high-quality items sourced from regional producers and artisans, with an emphasis on environmentally friendly practices. The platform provides pickup and home delivery services, allowing consumers to easily access local food while supporting the local economy and reducing the carbon footprint associated with product transportation.
- Les Radieux: The regional initiative Les Radieux focuses on the economic valorization of harvest surpluses for farmers by providing real-time support for managing their surplus produce. Its goal is to improve access to standard and downgraded local fruits and vegetables in the Chaudière-Appalaches region while contributing to sustainable development and adaptation to climate change, thereby creating a sustainable alternative food system.
- The city of Lévis: Eager to help the local food hubs of its region, the city of Lévis has deployed its own food products marketplace to boost the sales of local food products.
Next steps
With the current projects players, but also external foundations interested in the project, we are working on scaling this open food commerce network beyond the participants in this pilot in the Québec region.
