Working with MBA business students, at Imperial College, we identified locally grown food as one of the largest growth sectors in the food industry and an opportunity to create an ethically driven business.
After carrying out empathic research and analysing the barriers and drivers to accessing local food we eventually we developed Cartwheel. It is a service, which source’s seasonal food directly from local farmers (within 100 miles), delivered to a centralised sorting facility and brought by vans or bikes, to strategic locations in cities, at times that are convenient for people to pick up.
We identified the four main products categories focusing on fresh ingredients: loose raw produce, ready to cook meals where ingredients are sold by the recipe with the instructions, the third category is sauces and preserves, which add value, extend shelf-life and reclaim value on waste produce and the final category sandwiches.
A key part of the Cartwheel concept is an online offering. This includes detailed profiles and blogs by our farmers, creating a transparent food chain. To increase customer awareness, interaction and loyalty, we also identified an opportunity to foster an online community by first utilising social media and when the time is right, developing social features on the Cartwheel website including advice forums, running competitions to crowd source recipes and helping people build there own profiles for interaction with friends.
To make this project a reality we need a close relationship with forward thinking local authorities that give out street trading permits. If you like the idea please get in contact.
Design London Fellow
Rob Maslin
MBA Team
Mei Li, Huw Maggs, Will Pollen, Dannish Khan