Producers And Buyers Co-op

The Producers and Buyers Co-op (PBC) of Eau Claire Wisconsin was our second group of farmers who aggregate and selll their food to groups of customers.

One of the interesting differences between this group and the first (Southeast Minnesota Food Network) is that the members of PBC include customers and distributors as well as farmers. And the members all meet to negotiate prices and other business practices.

Here's one of their recent meetings:

What a great-looking gang!

You can read about some of the differences between PBC and SMFN and our software for each of them here.

PBC was started by some people from the River Country Resource Conservation and Development program, and Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire that wanted to get fresh local healthy food for their patients. The customers are all local institutions (hospitals, schools, etc.). They got advice from SMFN, which is where they found out about our software.

Their software started out as the same as SMFN's, and we changed it over time to fit their different requirements.

(Some of the people involved include Rick Beckler, Director of Hospitality Services of Sacred Heart Hospital, Pam Herdrich, Mary C. Anderson and Sherrie Beyer

of River Country RC&D. Sherrie collaborated on the software design and testing. These projects always require somebody from the user group to get deeply involved in the software, and Sherrie was the one on the PBC project.)

Darrel Lorch, PBC Interim Board President writes:

"The Producers & Buyers Co-op links local, sustainable agricultural producers with institutional buyers, and has a complex ordering and distribution system. The software you developed handles our weekly inventory of fresh products including meat, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables, it processes institutional orders, tracks the location of products, coordinates delivery with the transportation system, and allows us to identify and record payments to producers, processors and the delivery system.

"We appreciate how you worked closely with River Country RC&D staft who are assisting the co-op, over several months to listen to our needs, understand our unique food distribution model, and build the software, providing excellent input and suggestions throughout the process. This was done as we developed our operational model, and you enhanced the software daily or weekly as the board finalized its operational procedures and policies.

"It has been a great pleasure working with you, and we would be happy to share our experiences with others..

More PBC photos: