Australia Post teams up with Aussie farmers

Valerina Changarathil
The Advertiser
July 16, 2012

FRUITS and vegetables will be delivered fresh from the farm to your doorstep in a new Australia Post program.

For the first time you will be able to virtually `meet’ various farmers, see their farm and buy their produce at their prices through the internet.

Australia Post’s pilot paddock to plate venture is called Farmhouse Direct and marries the country’s largest delivery network – servicing close to 10.7 million addresses every day – with local producers.

The promise is to connect “you directly to the best local produce” and make local farmers markets and “artisan” produce an everyday experience, Australia Post communications manager Melanie Ward says.

The pilot program started out as a collaboration with the Victorian Farmers’ Markets Association this year but its popularity has led to a national rollout involving 70 producers and 680 products so far.

Australia Post has set up a website – at farmhousedirect.com.au – where farmers set up shop for free and set their own prices. Users can explore the website by region, product, produce and even by local farmers markets like the Flemington Farmers Market to order online.

Farmers prepare the shipments, which are either picked up by Australia Post from the farmer or handed in to a depot, and Australia Post looks after the delivery.

“It’s an exciting project for us. Still in its early stages, but the popularity has been overwhelming,” Ms Ward says.

“These days it’s important to set up an online presence and we are helping some of the local smaller businesses do that at no cost. The producers are the heroes,” Ms Ward says.

An official launch of the program is expected towards the end of this year.

South Australian navel orange growers, the Arnold family, joined the pilot program as Fresh Citrus Direct after coming across it on Facebook.

“It’s silly not to get involved. As growers we are desperate to get a better price for the 2000 tonnes of fruit we produce each year. Our margins are squeezed in the traditional routes. Though this is more work, but it gets us a bigger percentage of the sale price,” farmer Tim Arnold says.

The Adelaide Showground Farmers Market is yet to evaluate the benefits of the program to its 120 store members, but it sounds exciting, its CEO Amanda Daniel says.

Australia Post’s business model is different from its nearest competitor, Aussie Farmers Direct, in that there is no middleman.

All other consolidated online fruit and vegetable suppliers offer products without specifying the exact source and act as the middlemen. AFD has some `meet the farmer’ videos on YouTube but it does not have the information on their order website.

But it’s a model Australia Post needs to perfect, Ms Ward admits, and the work is underway. Currently buyers cannot aggregate deliveries though they have a single checkout. It’s up to the buyer to see if one producer can supply different products. Otherwise each order is delivered separately.