“We are a City of Gastronomy, which is all about our food production and our heritage,” Shelton said. “But all of our resources and attention have been spent on food prep and restaurants.”
Brennan Glow, assistant grower at Merchant’s Garden, types in data at the company’s urban aquaponics farm. Merchant’s Garden has developed a drive-thru pop-up market that “has a farmers market feel.”
Shelton’s role will be to connect with the agriculture community and explore ways to bring consumers who are used to the personal interaction with the farmers to the digital platforms.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “If you look at like grocery shopping, digital grocery shopping is blowing up right now. Why can’t we do the same thing in farming?”
That’s what Shelton hopes to figure out with a $100,000 USDA local food promotion program grant that he received around the same time as Startup Tucson received its USDA grant.
Shelton will develop strategies using his midtown aquaponics and hydroponics farm at 555 S. Tucson Blvd. as a model. The goal, he said, is to research what consumers want and need, especially as they deal with the pandemic.
“We want to see what their tolerance is for maybe coming to a new drive-thru pop-up market,” he said, which is one of the ideas he already has launched at Merchant’s Garden. “It’s COVID-safe but has a farmers market feel.”
Shelton is exploring ways to bring that concept to larger, more rural farm operations.
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source https://blog.jsa.digital/index.php/2020/10/24/startup-tucson-lands-250000-grant-to-help-farmers-join-the-digital-marketplace-business-news/
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