Flanagan
Foodservices Inc. of Kitchener is offering to help farmers use the internet to
sell directly to customers.
The service,
called Flanagan Market, started at the end of May and already has 28 farmers
signed up, such as Mountainoak Cheese Ltd. of Haysville and Bee Local 416
natural honey of Toronto.
“It’s really
trying to promote the whole local aspect and the site connects the farmers and
the producers with restaurants that we service across Ontario,” said Barry
Reid, Flanagan’s vice-president for sales and marketing.
Flanagan
began 40 years ago and now has 550 employees serving about 6,000 restaurants
and food distributors across Ontario through an inventory of about 10,000
warehoused products. It has centres in Kitchener, Owen Sound and Sudbury.
Those who
want to use the internet service sign up through the website, listing the
products they wanat to sell and posting a delivery schedule.
Flanagan then
decides whether it wants to list that company; Flanagan has a number of
prerequisites, such as companies must be established businesses and
food-safety certified.
Mr. Reid says
that Flanagan takes a small administration fee for the service.
He said that
making money was not the reason fror launching the service; he wants to help farmers
to market their products and possibly increase the scope of what Flanagan can
offer its customers.
