Below is a letter going out to the leading local milk delivery company here in the UK - seems to me they'd be ideal to spearhead a drive towards local, seasonal product sourcing and distribution.
A draft of the letter going out tonight - I'd love to hear your thoughts - good idea or stoopid?
Dear Sir
Premium Local Produce – sourcing, managing, and distributing
As you are fully aware, there is a growing awareness of “food miles” and associated carbon footprints in food distribution. All of the supermarket chains, to a greater or lesser extent, have prepared strategies to demonstrate their green credentials. Often, these credentials do not stand up to even surface scrutiny; take a look at the number of supermarket vegetable products that are flown in from the Ivory Coast, or Kenya, then distributed nationally by road.
It seems to me that Dairy Crest have a uniquely golden opportunity to leverage several unique features of your distribution model:
· An already “green” local distribution infrastructure (many local distribution outlets, a good proportion of electric vehicles)
· Good local roots
· A proactive approach to new business ideas (from what I can gather)
· An existing Dairy Crest online Business-to-Consumer presence and footprint
My suggestion is that you empower existing or new management staff to source specific local regional products and specialities, such as breads, vegetables, jams, spreads, juices, cheeses and so on; all items to be delivered by the selected local supplier to each of the 60-odd Dairy Crest Depots.
The system would very much depend on the internet for a strong ethically-focused initial marketing campaign alerting customers, who are increasingly environmentally aware and less price-sensitive, to the range of products available.
Good Internet infrastructure with very intuitive interfaces would be required to enable the regional managers to easily update their product availability to the central Dairy Crest customer site on a daily basis.
Customers could place orders online, be alerted to new offers and managers specials, even interact with their delivery agent (is that what milkmen are called now?). Agents would be incentivized by a commission on products sold, new customers directly signed up, potential products identified.
I would suggest that the scheme is piloted in one region (the SE of England?); this seems to be an area most moribund in terms of local milk to the doorstep delivery, and most challenged by Supermarket doorstep delivery.
Obviously, the devil is in the detail and there are many obstacles to overcome; However, I believe none of them are insurmountable, and the opportunities uniquely available to you bear further investigation. I have given some more thought to many of the likely discussion areas, and would welcome talking them through with you and the team on an informal basis.
PS – if you’re wondering why I’m motivated to write to you, the answer is I’m not sure; as a parent to two youngsters, I do feel strongly about the environment and their future in it – the opportunity to earn some consultancy revenue would be very welcome too(!)
Sincerely
Mark Schroeder
A draft of the letter going out tonight - I'd love to hear your thoughts - good idea or stoopid?
Dear Sir
Premium Local Produce – sourcing, managing, and distributing
As you are fully aware, there is a growing awareness of “food miles” and associated carbon footprints in food distribution. All of the supermarket chains, to a greater or lesser extent, have prepared strategies to demonstrate their green credentials. Often, these credentials do not stand up to even surface scrutiny; take a look at the number of supermarket vegetable products that are flown in from the Ivory Coast, or Kenya, then distributed nationally by road.
It seems to me that Dairy Crest have a uniquely golden opportunity to leverage several unique features of your distribution model:
· An already “green” local distribution infrastructure (many local distribution outlets, a good proportion of electric vehicles)
· Good local roots
· A proactive approach to new business ideas (from what I can gather)
· An existing Dairy Crest online Business-to-Consumer presence and footprint
My suggestion is that you empower existing or new management staff to source specific local regional products and specialities, such as breads, vegetables, jams, spreads, juices, cheeses and so on; all items to be delivered by the selected local supplier to each of the 60-odd Dairy Crest Depots.
The system would very much depend on the internet for a strong ethically-focused initial marketing campaign alerting customers, who are increasingly environmentally aware and less price-sensitive, to the range of products available.
Good Internet infrastructure with very intuitive interfaces would be required to enable the regional managers to easily update their product availability to the central Dairy Crest customer site on a daily basis.
Customers could place orders online, be alerted to new offers and managers specials, even interact with their delivery agent (is that what milkmen are called now?). Agents would be incentivized by a commission on products sold, new customers directly signed up, potential products identified.
I would suggest that the scheme is piloted in one region (the SE of England?); this seems to be an area most moribund in terms of local milk to the doorstep delivery, and most challenged by Supermarket doorstep delivery.
Obviously, the devil is in the detail and there are many obstacles to overcome; However, I believe none of them are insurmountable, and the opportunities uniquely available to you bear further investigation. I have given some more thought to many of the likely discussion areas, and would welcome talking them through with you and the team on an informal basis.
PS – if you’re wondering why I’m motivated to write to you, the answer is I’m not sure; as a parent to two youngsters, I do feel strongly about the environment and their future in it – the opportunity to earn some consultancy revenue would be very welcome too(!)
Sincerely
Mark Schroeder
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