@jasen_lakic, L’Alveare (it means The Hive) sounds similar to the one you were talking about. It’s a web platform plus a series of physical pop-up locations (maybe some of them are fixed?). There are a few of them in Tuscany, I’m looking forward to visit/try it this Christmas.
It is basically, as I understand it, a digital marketplace where local producers can promote their products, and there is a weekly physical market in various location where you go and pick up your shopping (or you can even ask for home delivery).
Still based on standard market economy, but it promises to be a much better alternative to large distribution nonetheless.
…having said that, in Tuscany in particular and as far as I know, even the large distribution is quite sensitive to local, sustainable, and healthy options.
All in all, what I am getting at is that certain places are quite far ahead in the mainstream acceptance of certain choices, and now that there are even marketplaces for direct producer-to-consumer is encouraging to me.
Perhaps there are geographic and historic reasons for that, but let’s leave that thought for another time…
On the other hand, I also noticed we talked a lot of entrepreneurial solutions to revitalise the rural communities, and I wonder if imagining something structured more like the Catalan Integral Cooperative would be even possible, especially in regions where so much is already existing that fits within the comfort levels of conscious consumers.
Or taking this even further, I wonder what a healthy combination of virtuous marketplaces and alternative economics could look like, and what it would take to sparkle such initiatives…