Case Study

Farm Urban

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Greens for Good Pandemic Response

The Challenge

Farm Urban’s business model is supported through the sale of greens to local businesses and restaurants. But in 2020 – with most businesses and restaurants closed – we lost a major source of our revenue and potential customers. With schools closed we weren’t able to deliver produce and education programmes to our beneficiaries via normal channels.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we were days away from signing Greens for Good partnership agreements with a number of local restaurants, to supply them with herbs and leafy greens. As part of the agreement, the restaurants add a £1 donation to the bills on all covers. This donation supports the supply of greens to schools and vulnerable groups across the city, along with our education and outreach programmes. 

The Response

We reacted quickly and donated all surplus produce to isolated and vulnerable groups, including older people, food banks, homeless shelters and children who were getting free school meals. To fund this activity beyond our initial surplus, we launched a paid home delivery service for individuals. Every box sold supports the delivery of a box  to a vulnerable individual or supporting organisation.            

We partnered with: 

  1. Whitechapel centre

  2. MAMA

  3. Asylum Link 

  4. Central Link 

  5. Feeding Britain

To make sure that our delivery was as clean and green as possible, we partnered with local social enterprise Peloton and its Agile e-cargo bike and electronic van delivery service, to deliver our boxes.

The Outcome

Over a ten-week period we managed to take the farm from 40% to 100% capacity and secured sales for 100% of produce for the following two months, including: 

  • Magenta Living – 100 donation boxes per week

  • Steve Morgan Foundation – 100 donation boxes per week, to the five partner organisations listed above

  • LCR Cares- 100 donation boxes per week to the the five partner organisations listed above

  • Good Liverpool – e-commerce platform – 10 boxes per week 

  • Little World Market – 10 boxes per week 

  • Dark Kitchen Presents – all fallen herbs that don’t make it into our boxes are used to make preserved products such as basil oil and pesto. All second lettuce, which isn’t big enough to go into our boxes, went onto Dark Kitchen’s vegan Bae Burgers. 

 We also used the time to develop, troubleshoot and refine our logistics model, with the Agile partnership proving highly successful. 

"Farm Urban are leading us all towards the kinder economy we, and our planet, need to survive"

Jennifer Van der Merwe - Director - Kindred -LCR

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