The hive effect

La Ruche distributes farm-grown produce to nearby customers. maddyness.com

One of the latest firms supported by Quadia is a French online local produce supplier, La Ruche qui dit ouExternal linki  (The hive that says yes), delivering food produced on average within a 43 kilometre radius to customers.

Aymeric Jung, a managing partner at Quadia, explained that with approximately 25% of greenhouse gas emissions originating from agriculture and food supply, the company works in so-called short food circuits.

After Quadia invested, together with three other investors, in La Ruche, the company has expanded into Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom (where the company is known as The Food Assembly). It currently has 700 “ruches” (hives) from which it delivers food manufactured by 4,000 producers.

“This is typically a solution that promotes new eating habits with a new food system allowing one to reduce the harmful effects created by having food circle the world three times before ending up in our plates,” Jung explains enthusiastically.

After signing up on the company’s website with a local distributor, or ruche, the company’s customers receive an email saying what can be purchased that week. Local farmers then sell their goods directly to clients, and receive 80% for every product sold or approximately four times what they would receive from supermarket chains.

Meanwhile, La Ruche doesn’t manage the local communities directly. Ruche managers are independent contractors, familiar with local food producers. According to the start-up’s co-founder, Marc-David Choukroun, only three to four people are needed to manage a network of 100 to 200 ruches.