Part 2
Sourcing: a dual-stream plan
How to buy surplus without letting an unreliable supply sink your business.
The principle: buy from local farmers to reduce losses, but do not rely on surplus alone. A business cannot grow on inconsistent inputs.
In the worked example, cabbage is a crop that can be lost in large amounts during peak harvest, especially when producers do not cool it after cutting. The sourcing plan has two streams.
- Stream A, surplus interception: buy cabbages that farmers cannot sell and that are at risk of rotting. This delivers the mission and should be your first source.
- Stream B, coordinated supply: for part of your volume, agree forward contracts or coordinated purchasing with smallholder farmers, so you can count on quantity, quality and timing as you grow.
Mission and business
Stream A is the mission. Stream B is the business. If you only buy surplus, you cannot promise a retailer steady supply. If you only contract farmers, you are not directly cutting post-harvest loss. You need both.
Because the product is a platform, you can accept surplus from any qualified base vegetable, not only cabbage. When cabbage is scarce you might intercept cauliflower; when cauliflower is expensive you might look at zucchini. That makes Stream A far more resilient, but remember that each new base needs its own formulation test (see Part 3).
Exercise 2.1 · Map your supply chain
- Who are the farmers? How many are within a distance you could realistically collect from?
- When is the harvest season, and how long does the surplus window last?
- What prices do farmers receive during peak surplus compared with the off-season?
- Could you find a handful of farmers willing to agree a forward contract or coordinated supply?
- If your base crop is out of season, which other base vegetable could you switch to?