Peasant Box - Cutia Taranului
We too have been running a food-box delivery project http://cutiataranului.ro which connects village producers with consumers in neighboring cities in Romania.
When we launched the project someone living in Romania with a more western mentality asked us how we deal with storage locally and in the city - they wanted to inquire about sharing our storage space in the city. Our storage space is, for the most part, on the plants. During most of the growing season our members (consumers) get food that was picked either the same or the previous day. I can’t think of another way to benefit from such freshness and vitality while living in a city.
Food shouldn’t have to travel - that reduces its value across the board - nutrition, ecology, socially and sustainability-wise. I believe greater emphasis should be made on local food - and that only really unique and valuable (not in terms of money) products which are not available locally may be shipped (I still use some olive oil which can’t be found in Romania, though I have switched to using much more locally harvested sunflower seed oil). In a healthy and sustainable food-culture, this continent-wide project should be marginal. Would it still be viable?
Also, for projects like this to work there needs to be social/cultural/economic compatibility and adaptivity. The information system that drives Cutia Taranului was custom made for Romanian settings. I am confident that Epelia has German culture built into it and that Eimhin’s project is shaped by its cultural settings … and http://www.farmigo.com/ is a very American project and model (that I believe would be irrelevant in Romania).
For example the phrase “regional groups (“cells”) of at least 10 food producers each” assumes a culture of organization and collaboration - this isn’t obvious and may take on different forms in different cultures.
my 2 cents …