LA Blueprint Builds Online Marketplace for Farm2People’s Enhanced Food Supply Conduit
LA Blueprint’s Farm2People design and development team
Meet our partners: LA Blueprint
We learned from our incredible partner LA Blueprint about the anticipated launch of our online marketplace that will connect small farmers with new buyers and hunger relief agencies. This is the mark of a brand new beginning for Farm2People!
As a team of UCLA students, LA Blueprint has been working behind the scenes since January on our marketplace. They are a non-profit committed to building and promoting tech for social good, for free! We kid you not. This organization is crucial! Give them a follow! The UCLA Chapter is the third iteration of the now multinational Blueprint organization, founded in 2013 at UC Berkeley.
LA Blueprint brings Farm2People’s vision to life
Through our partnership, we’ve had the opportunity to work with an outrageously talented team of students to develop and design the tech required to bring Farm2People’s work online. On May 15, we gathered on Zoom for “Demo Day,” where LA Blueprint gave a detailed run down of their progress.
What we can reveal is that we view our upcoming marketplace as a game changer to automate the business of connecting farmers (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, immigrant, and/or female-owned or led etc.) who have excess produce to new buyers and hunger relief organizations in Los Angeles County.
This new network will further disrupt the traditional food distribution channels that have negatively affected small farmers. It transforms Farm2People from its original mission spawned from the pandemic in 2020, which impacted the food supply chain. At that time, we hit the pavement to manually connect struggling farmers to new buyers over phone and email, and to our own manual database. This marketplace, developed by LA Blueprint, brings a much more streamlined approach.
The new Farm2People marketplace landing page.
Interview with Ryan Tran and Vivian Nguyen
We caught up with LA Blueprint’s team leads for the Farm2People project, Ryan Tran and Vivian Nguyen, who handled development and design of our marketplace, respectively.
LA Blueprint has a cross disciplinary team of 12 students handling the project. Most of the students are computer science majors, although Tran says one is studying economics and another is a design media major. Altogether, the team amassed nearly 3,000 hours of work on this project. Again, we are so grateful!
We were one of three organizations selected out of a handful of nonprofits that applied with LA Blueprint, according to Tran, who was drawn to our mission. The overall challenge posed for the project was: Can LA Blueprint create a marketplace platform that automates end-to-end processes of Farm2People’s food distribution model, while interfacing the buying and selling process in a human-centric way?
Ryan Tran
“What I really appreciate is that they are extremely passionate about what they do,” he said. “They came to all of our meetings. Something that really resonated was how much social impact they have.”
Tran said his team learned it wasn’t about developing something centering specific communities to individuals who are susceptible to being food insecure, but about bringing a sustainability model that can endure and be self-sufficient. Citing this project for social good as "humanitarian technology," the online marketplace cannot only be an outlet for a type of independent food system, but also use its proceeds to be inherently sustainable.
“I like how they want to prop up marginalized-owned farms,” Tran said. “I thought it was super impactful.”
From Farm2People still being in its concept phase, Tran said he learned how many nonprofits we served and determined, once the online marketplace is completed later this year, the ability to scale our operation is potentially exponential, even well beyond servicing California.
“It’s a testament to the work they do in the community,” he said.
As you can see in the graphics above, Tran and his team built out the marketplace platform, wireframes and mind mapping. Next, the whole team had stages of critiques, iterations and user testing.
Nguyen delegated tasks to the design team, reviewed the design and offered feedback on how to make it cohesive in appearance and usability. She also created the overall design system and relayed design related questions in our meetings. Her team conducted in-depth research with farmers and buyers, including monitoring food shopping behaviors online.
Vivian Nguyễn
“Prior to the Farm2People team in LA Blueprint, there was only one project lead for each project, which led to a lack of guidance in the design end,” Nguyen said. “With such a large-scale web application, it was helpful to have two project leads oversee the development and design processes. I loved being able to see the gradual improvement of each of the designers in their design sense and skills, and experiencing first-hand their willingness and persistence to make iterations and design changes.”
Nguyen believes the welcoming design and attention to detail her team put into the application will stand out among the competition.
“Along with the special mission Farm2People has as a non-profit, this marketplace prioritizes its userbase and supports farmers, agencies, and fellow non-profits during the pandemic,” she said. “I think the amazing support Farm2People offers for the farming community makes this platform distinct. I am excited to see where this application will be in the future!”
After the remaining tests in design and development, we can’t wait to share our next update on this special project!
Learn More:
Watch the full demo! Farm2People Demo Day with LA Blueprint