Benzi Ronen thinks that the supermarkets’ time is up. And his company is just the thing to speed up its demise.本齐·罗内恩指出餐馆的时代将要完结，而他的公司正是加快其消失的催化剂。“Our goal is to make the supermarket obsolete from a fresh perspective,” Ronen says.罗内恩回应：“我们的目标是以生鲜为卖点，让餐馆显得过时。

”Farmigo, his five-year-old 30-employee startup, sells produce and other products like milk and cheese purchased directly from farmers for 10%-20% less than equivalent grocery store items. He does it by shrinking the supply chain, essentially taking out the middleman. Users place an order online; the order is fulfilled by a farmer who transports it to a centralized packing hub; and then Farmigo delivers it to community drop-off points for the customer to pick up. This all happens within 48 hours.他5年前创立的Farmigo公司现享有30名员工。这家公司出售必要从农民处出售的农作物和牛奶、乳酪等产品，售价比杂货店的皆价低10%到20%平均。其奥秘在于延长了供应链，尤其是去除了中间环节。

用户必要在网上下单，农民将产品送往中转站集中于纸盒，Farmigo公司再行将包覆送往社区仓储点，顾客从那里所取回头包覆。这一切都在48小时之内已完成。“We don’t have a retail store,” Benzi explains. “We get rid of all of that. We source just in time.” That means there’s no waste and produce is brought directly from harvest.罗内恩说明道：“我们没零售店，我们几乎去除了零售环节，但仍然需要及时供货。

”这意味著中间没校验环节，农产品必要从庄稼地载运至顾客那里。Other sellers, such as Fresh Direct, also cut out the physical store. But Ronen argues that they’re just an extension of the supermarket model, with similar warehouses that keep a huge inventory on hand. By contrast, Farmigo’s hubs are filled exclusively with product that’s just been delivered by farmers and is going out for delivery.Fresh Direct等其他零售商也中止了实体店。但罗内恩指出他们不过是餐馆模式的某种伸延，这类零售商仍然跟餐馆一样，享有储备大量存货的仓库。

忽略，Farmigo的中转站只有由农民送，将要送来去顾客那里的农产品。“Our entire food system is based on economies of scale,” he explains, adding that it has contributed to the hub-and-spoke distribution model in which food travels hundreds of miles and can sit on shelves for weeks. “You don’t get fresh in supermarkets, and you also have waste,” he says.他说明道：“我们的整个食品供应系统是以规模效益为基础的。”他补足说道，这是对中心轴辐式仓储模式的一种改进，在这种模式下，食品往往被载运几百英里，常常在货架上逗留好几周。他回应：“超强市里的产品过于新鲜，而且更容易导致浪费。

”If Ronen’s vision for the future becomes a reality, in 10 years you’ll get all of your non-perishables from the likes of Amazon, while a service like Farmigo will answer all of your fresh needs. Neighborhood stores will act as gap-fillers for last-minute purchases. Farmigo, he notes, will never be a gap-filler. Currently orders must be placed by Sunday night for pick-up on Wednesday, but Ronen says the company is on track to soon expand to multiple pick-up days.如果罗内恩的愿景变为现实，不出有十年，你将从亚马逊（Amazon）等网站出售所有容易伤害的物品，而Farmigo这类服务商不会符合你所有的生鲜产品市场需求，社区商店则不会沦为必须应急出售商品时的最合适方案。罗内恩指出，Farmigo绝不会沦为最合适方案。目前，如果客户想要在周三取货，他或她最晚要在周日晚下订单，但罗内恩回应该公司迅速就将减少取货天数。

It’s a highly audacious vision for a small upstart, especially in a world where consumers are accustomed to eating strawberries and tomatoes no matter the season, enjoy clementines flown in from Morocco and sea bass from Chile, and want purchases delivered to their doorstep within 24-hour hours.对一个小型初创公司而言，这是一个十分大胆的心愿，特别是在是现在的顾客早已习惯于随时品尝草莓或番茄而不用考虑到季节，习惯于享用空运自摩洛哥的克莱门氏小柑橘和智利的白鲈，同时还期望他们出售的产品能在下单后24小时内送往家门口。Right now Brooklyn-based Farmigo operates just in New York City and its environs and the San Francisco Bay Area, markets picked for their divergent agricultural offerings–one strongly shaped by the seasons, the other with stellar food options year round. If Farmigo can operate in these two regions, Ronen thinks the company will be able to replicate the model and build a network of farmers across the country.目前这家坐落于布鲁克林的公司只对纽约市和周边地区，以及旧金山湾区获取服务。他们不会获取有所不同的农产品——一部分是与季节有关的时令产品，另一些则是全年都有的主食。

罗内恩指出，如果Farmigo可以在这两个地区运作下去，该公司就能拷贝这一模式，创建一个覆盖面积全美的农户网络。Farmigo could eventually reach about 20%-30% of the U.S. population based on people’s buying habits and guidelines, Ronen says, adding that community-supported agriculture programs (CSAs) currently reach less than 1%. Unlike CSAs, in which users must commit to weekly deliveries for a season from one farm, Farmigo lets customers place a one-time order and change selections every week. You pay as you go. Ronen views CSAs as supplementary to other grocery shopping. He envisions Farmigo as a replacement for all fresh needs.罗内恩回应，根据人们的出售习惯和出售方针来看，Farmigo最后可能会向20%至30%的美国人获取服务，而目前只有将近1%的美国人参予了“社区反对农业项目”（CSA）。

参与CSA项目的顾客必需允诺在一个季度之内，每周都从某个农场采购农产品。相比之下，Farmigo的顾客可以只收到重复使用订单，也可以每周自由选择有所不同的农产品，根据订单的变化随时调整缴付金额。罗内恩指出，CSA项目是对家门口小餐馆购物的补足，而Farmigo则是符合所有生鲜食品市场需求的代替者。Farmigo’s average order size is up to $38 from $15 a year and a half ago, in large part because the startup keeps adding new products (such as fish, and soon, fresh pasta). There’s now enough variety that one could live solely on Farmigo’s offerings. One of Ronen’s employees has been doing just that for months at a cost of about $5 a meal, and Ronen just signed on for what is internally called the “Farmigo Challenge.”Farmigo的订单均价从一年半前的15美元涨了现在的38美元，相当大原因是这家初创公司在大大减少新品（比如鱼类，迅速还不会有新鲜的意大利面条上市）。

如今他们获取的种类早已充足多，人们起码靠Farmigo的供应就能符合日常市场需求。罗内恩的一名员工就这样做到了几个月，平均值一餐约花费5美元。而罗内恩也开始重新加入这一行动，他们内部把这叫作“Farmigo挑战”。

Ronen acknowledges that the pricing is still prohibitive for some—an organic cantaloupe costs $6.50—but the more he can improve the efficiencies for the farmer by increasing their business, the better the price tag for the customer.罗内恩否认，某些产品的价格依然过低，比如，一个有机哈密瓜的售价高达6.5美元。不过，随着农民的生产效率因做生意规模的不断扩大而大大提高，农产品售价将显得更加实惠。Farmigo started out as the maker of software for an online marketplace where consumers could find and sign up for CSAs. But Ronen says it was a confusing user experience because the sign-up and payment system differed for each offering. Farmigo then evolved into a place where users could order online from any farm, and the farmer would deliver to a pick-up location. That had its challenges because sometimes farmers would run into logistical hiccups and miss the drop-off. “We realized we really needed to get into operational side,” Ronen says.创办伊始，Farmigo公司的主要业务是为一家电商撰写软件，以协助顾客找寻和参与CSA项目。但罗内恩回应，当时的出售体验让不少用户心碎，因为各个农产品供应商使用几乎有所不同的下单和缴纳系统。

Farmigo随后演变了一家网站，用户可以在上面采购任何农场的产品，农民则将货物相赠到仓储点。这种流程不存在一些运营挑战，因为农民的物流有时候不会出有问题，造成货物遗失。罗内恩回应：“我们意识到我们知道必须自己特地来运作。

”While the company continues to sell its CSA software, it also now has free offerings that help its farms know when to hire, its warehouses know what to pack, and its drivers know what to deliver. Ronen says that its farmers walk away with 60-70% of the sale, the community organizer who runs the drop-off gets 10%, and Farmigo gets the rest. Normally a farmer gets about 30% of the sale when they sell to wholesale, with about 50% going to the retailer. Another advantage advantage for farmers in the Farmigo system, according to Ronen: They’re also paid immediately directly by the consumer, rather than the standard 30-60 days.这家公司依然在销售CSA软件，同时也获取了免费服务，让农场告诉什么时候必须雇用更加多人手，让仓库告诉要包什么货物，让司机告诉要载运什么包覆。罗内恩回应，农民不会取得销售额的60%至70%，社区取货点不会取得销售额的10%，只剩的则由Farmigo收益囊中。一般来说，农民在卖给批发市场时，不能取得30%的销售额，而有50%的销售额不会转入零售商的口袋。根据罗内恩的众说纷纭，Farmigo系统对农民还有另一个益处：他们能马上接到顾客的缴付，而在其他模式下，农民一般来说得等上30至60天才能获得钱。

The Fresh Directs and Amazons need the density of cities to function, but Ronen believes his model works well in the suburbs where pick-up locations–churches, schools, golf clubs–are easy to come by. Farmigo recently expanded into northern New Jersey and Westchester and is adding about 30 drop-off sites a month.Fresh Directs和亚马逊在人口密集的城市地区才能如鱼得水，但罗内恩坚信他的模式在郊区也能运转较好，诸如教堂、学校、高尔夫俱乐部这样的取货点也很更容易寻找。Farmigo最近把业务范围扩展到了新泽西州北部和韦斯切斯特地区，并以每月30个的速度减少社区仓储点。

He views Farmigo as the virtualization of a food cooperative and a good solution for locations where it might be hard to justify a supermarket. “We’re not just sending food out there and hoping people are going to buy it,” he says. “We’re sending out what was pre-ordered and pre-purchased. The pickup is at one location so it’s very portable and cost effective to do delivery.”罗内恩将Farmigo视作虚拟化的食品合作社，对那些很难寻找餐馆的地区来说，它不会是一个很好的自由选择。他回应：“我们不是把食品送往那里，然后确信大家去出售。我们仓储的是早已被预计和出售的产品。

取货点也正处于一个便捷方位，因此车主十分便利，效率很高。

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