The Boston Globe - 31.07.2019

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 The Boston Globe G5

land Creek Oyster from Dux-
bury, plus many more farms
and purveyors. The purchas-
ing process was about the
same as Amazon or any online
purchase, though the money
goes directly to the farm or
producer, with a small fee to
the WhatsGood service. Then a
few days later, I picked up
green and yellow beans, rad-
ishes, cucumbers, and beets,
packed in a canvas satchel
with ice packs, that had been
delivered by farmers and pro-
ducers who are within a 2-
hour drive time from the city.
If I lived within 5 miles of the
pickup point, the purchases
could have been delivered to
my door for a $5 fee.
To Tortora’s way of think-
ing, using the technology of
the startup WhatsGood means
the middleman is cut out. The
consumer is basically dealing
directly with the farmer or
producer; WhatsGood, which
is based in Rhode Island, does
not sell the products, but is the
facilitator, or aggregator, with
its employees sorting and dis-
tributing the buyer’s purchases
into containers. Since the
farmer or producer is selling
up front and being paid before
the pickup, he or she knows
just what to deliver to the pick-
up point, and there is little
waste. And, Tortora says, the
customer is buying exactly
what they want and in the
amounts they want, eliminat-
ing some of the lack of choice
in some CSA models.
The idea for WhatsGood
came from Tortora’s days as a
chef in Jamestown, R.I. Like
many chefs, Tortora wanted to
buy locally and directly from
producers. But doing that took
a lot of research and time, and
“distributors didn’t have what
I wanted.” Meanwhile, through
his connections to farmers, he
was finding that they were
struggling to find new mar-
kets. With his wife, Erin, and
another partner, Will Araujo,
he started to envision technol-
ogy that could “solve the prob-
lem of how people accessed lo-
cal food produced in their
community.” Technology that
was efficient and could scale
up was the key, they decided.
After a few years of connecting
chefs across the country with
farmers and producers and li-
censing WhatsGood technolo-
gy to farmers’ markets, the re-
tail arm of WhatsGood was
launched in 2017.
Last year, the team began
testing delivery in Rhode Is-
land, and this year in the Bos-
ton area. Home delivery is
available everywhere in Rhode
Island and within 5 miles of
the Fenway area in Boston.
Other customers can pick up
their orders at such locations
as Boston Public Library in
Roxbury Crossing, Turtle
Swamp Brewing in Boston,
and gyms and community cen-
ters. Some businesses and con-
dominiums in Rhode Island
and in Boston, such as Blue
Cross & Blue Shield and the
Harlo Residences, offer pickup
points with sales exclusively to
employees and residents.
Farmers’ markets in Ver-
mont, New York state, Mary-
land and as far away as Arkan-
sas also use the WhatsGood
technology.
The company is small with
30 employees, 20 of whom are
designers and engineers,
working mostly in Brazil. Tor-
tora went to Johnson & Wales
Culinary after 10 years in the

uWHATSGOOD
Continued from Page G1

Navy as a nuclear missile tech-

nician on submarines; Erin

Tortora was a supply chain and

logistics officer in the Navy,

and Araujo has a background

in computers. Although there’s

an office in Providence, Torto-

ra and other members of his

team can often be found at

pickup points such as Procla-

mation Ale in Warwick, R.I.

There on a recent hot weekday,

a young farmer brought in

eggs, and a cheese shop owner

delivered cheeses. David Con-

ner of Ocean State Pepper Co.

had just a few bags of season-

ings to deliver, but says this

way of retailing is much more

cost-effective than mailing

products to customers, and

“every week we get more or-

ders.”

Rachael Slattery of Wild

Harmony Farm, Exeter, R.I.,

who brought in 10 orders of

grass-fed beef and other meat

and eggs, said: “We were doing

a weekly farmers’ market but it

was so much work getting

there, setting up.” Using

WhatsGood has a “huge im-

pact,” she said, even beyond

sales, allowing the farmers to

exchange messages on the app

with customers and create

“better lines of communica-

tion.”

Meanwhile, WhatsGood op-

erations specialist Mary Palaz-

zolo and other team members

sorted the farmers’ deliveries,

each marked with the buyers’

names, into canvas satchels

that were delivered later that

day to homes. It’s a lean opera-

tion, said Tortora, and some-

times he does deliveries him-

self. In Boston, a separate com-

pany has been contracted to

make deliveries.

Farmers have traditionally

been slow to change their

ways, but Jim Ward, one of the

owners of Ward’s Berry Farm,

a large year-round farm and

farm stand in Sharon, says he’s

a fan of the technology. “It

adds a new avenue of market-

ing,” he says, and the technolo-

gy has been relatively easy to

work with. His director of

sales, Ryan Marshall, added:

“The software allows us to

completely control the inven-

tory,” important when produce

inventory changes daily. Sales

through WhatsGood are still

small, both said, but since cus-

tomers can order year-round,

it should help in the months

when there are fewer farmers’

markets to sell Ward’s Berry

storage and greenhouse crops.

Farmers and producers set

their own prices, said Tortora,

and 90 percent of every sale

goes to them, with about 3 per-

cent for credit card fees and

the other 7 percent to Whats-

Good.

Tortora and his team plan

to expand WhatsGood to other

cities and possibly other coun-

tries. But issues remain similar

to those facing farmers and

others dedicated to growing

and buying food locally. “Edu-

cation is the biggest chal-

lenge,” Tortora said. Learning

more about how food is grown

and produced is crucial. When

a consumer can buy eggs for

$1.99 in Walmart, the prices

from a local farmer of $5-$6

might seem excessive. Yet, he

said, those eggs would have

been collected from the nests

that morning, whereas the

commercial eggs could have

been 60 days old in a store.

WhatsGood offers convenience

and a new model, but knowing

your food is still the crucial

selling point.

Alison Arnett can be reached

at [email protected].

Getting farm fresh items directly to consumers

PHOTOS BY PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF

Left: WhatsGood operations

specialist Mary Palazzolo

checks in clients’ pre-

packaged orders from

Ward’s Berry Farm in

Sharon. Top: kohlrabi and

sunflower shoots.

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