The Open Food Network project is taking off thanks to the VicHealth Seed Challenge.
This timely investment has our software design and development team with heads down, bums up – on track to a much more functional and beautiful shopping experience by February.
Will Marshall and Alex and Leigh from WiCreate bring grunt (and much more facial hair) to the team, joining Raf and Rohan and Kirsten, Serenity and our crew of amazing volunteers in a hive of activity at Hub Melbourne.
Can you explain the Open Food Network in 10 seconds?
Well no. But we’re getting much closer! We’ve got a brand new website explaining the Open Food Network, complete with farmers and an great little animation completed pro bono by the amazing and passionate Matt Arnold.
Getting down and dirty We’ve had initial kick-off meeting with each of our trial partners– Marcus and Angie from Local Organics; Gil and Meredith from Grow Lightly Connect; Andrea from Mildura Healthy Together and Ty from Kildonan Uniting Care.
Local Organics – who are bravely using our first prototype – are excited about moving to the brand spanking OFN in January.
Kirsten and Serenity have been down to Gippsland, getting down and dirty with Gil and Meredith in detailed mapping of how the OFN will help them – and where we can save the most pain soonest.
Reaching out to the world
November has seen us increasing in confidence as we reach out to the world! Smartplanet featured the Open Food Network as part of a piece on the growing open food movement in Melbourne.
Internationally renowned food activist and educator Simran Sethi gave the Open Food Network a resounding endorsement at our event at the Changemaker’s Festival.
We demoed OFN with Chris Walsh from Manchester Veg People and the Kindling Trust (UK). Chris is currently on tour in Australia talking all things food hub and social enterprise. His response? "Can we get this in the UK?"
Interested in helping out?
We are always on the look out for volunteers who want to contribute to the open food revolution! Our most urgent need right now is a lawyer, but we also need volunteers of all shapes and sizes. Have skills in communications and social media, business planning or evaluation? Want to help us out with user testing? Want to help out on the tech side? Get in touch at [email protected].
We'll be taking a second round of early adopters in Feb/March 2014 – so if you are, or want to run a food hub (of any shape or size), sign up to find out when you can get on board www.openfoodnetwork.org
You can also find us on Twitter @OpenFoodNet and facebook.com/OpenFoodNet.
