Appetite for the home-delivery model of grocery shopping is growing in Canada, and Jonnel Sloane hopes that Farm 2 Fork will be on the cutting edge of the industry with organic, naturally raised meat products.
In 2013, Jonnel Sloane was running Home Food Solutions, selling meat door-to-door, with dreams of becoming “M&M on wheels.” But the more he talked to customers, the more he noticed a desire for more natural, organic options when buying chicken, pork, lamb or other meats.
“There was a disconnect between the farmers and the consumer,” says Sloane. “There wasn’t a proper retail channel or a platform with many products, almost like an online farmers market, that people could access all the time.”
Sloane rebranded as Farm 2 Fork in 2014, with an aim to deliver that farmers market experience directly to the customer’s door. The business is focused on providing access to organic, naturally-raised and locally sourced products in a transparent and open fashion. The company’s website offers a range of meats, categorized so the consumer can quickly check each offering for where it comes from and the values that are relevant to them such as whether the animal was vegetarian grain-fed or free range or whether it was process air-chilled.
“I can say that they were sourced from here, or they’re produced here, or they were packed here, and that creates the connection with the consumer,” says Sloane. “Customers are looking for that. I believe they want transparency. Different customers have different value systems and they want to know ‘Are my value systems in my choices aligning with the things that I’m eating?’”
The majority of the products are flash-frozen and will last up to a year in a freezer. The company offers delivery in a wide area between Petawawa, ON and Montreal, PQ. They’ve also formed a fruitful partnership with Northern Shopper, who ship the entire Farm 2 Fork product line to ten communities in Nunavut and surrounding areas. The company was also due imminently, as of press time, to begin rolling out a partnership in Toronto with PenguinPickUp, who provide customers with a location where they can have their online purchases sent without fear of missing deliveries or having a package stolen.
Nationwide shipping is a long term goal, but Sloane notes that there are still logistic challenges. Canada has not adopted to the home-delivery model of shopping as rapidly as the United States, and does not have the same level of related logistic infrastructure. But it is heading in that direction.
“I believe in the next five to seven years, Canada will be right on par with the US, because there’s a demand there. And I hope that we’re ahead of the curve. “