Our story
Local food loses on price and convenience. We're fixing both.
Global supply chains beat local farms on cost through scale. Grocery stores beat them on convenience through aggregation. Neither advantage is permanent — supply chains are getting frailer, and the convenience gap exists mostly because no one's bothered to close it. County Farm Collective closes it: one place to see what County farms are growing, one weekly order, one pickup. As more growers and households join, the price gap closes too — not because anyone's being charitable, but because the system finally has the coordination it needed.
The problem with local food
Right now, buying local costs more than buying from a grocery store stocked by long-haul supply chains. That's a barrier for customers and a ceiling for farmers. Supporting your community shouldn't require paying a premium. The food that travels the least should be the freshest and most affordable on the shelf.
Our just-in-time approach
We give farmers real demand signals before they harvest. By coordinating orders in advance, growers know exactly what to pick and when - eliminating waste, reducing spoilage, and keeping costs down. Less guesswork for producers means better prices and fresher food for everyone at the table.
One storefront, many producers
Whether you're a household planning weekly meals or a restaurant committed to featuring local ingredients on your menu, the Collective makes it easy. Shop from a curated selection of Prince Edward County growers and makers in a single, coordinated order — no sourcing from a dozen different farms, no unpredictable availability.
- ●Household groceries from producers you can name
- ●Restaurant-ready volumes with consistent weekly availability
- ●One pickup or delivery, however many farms contributed
The team
Two people with complementary obsessions — local food and operational efficiency — working to grow something lasting.
Hank Goddard
Hank's vision was simple and stubborn: there's no good reason locally grown food from Prince Edward County should cost more than whatever arrives on a refrigerated truck from hundreds of kilometres away. That conviction became the seed of the Collective — a belief that the right model could make local the obvious choice, not the premium one.
Mike Da Silva
Mike joined to turn that vision into an operation — building the logistics, technology, and processes needed to coordinate farmers, orders, and customers at scale. His focus is on the systems that make the Collective run smoothly week after week, so that growers can stay focused on growing and customers can count on what they've ordered actually arriving.
What's next for the Collective
The foundation is in place. Now the work is growth — in all directions.
- ●Bringing on more local producers to expand variety and volume
- ●Improving delivery and pickup options to reach more customers
- ●Expanding the customer base so local farmers have a market worth growing for