• NathA
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    24 days ago

    I’ve had a brain cell chugging away in the back of my head for the last hour or so thinking of what I’d really like to do if I had this sort of money. The first idea that has come to mind is something like Coles/Woolies online. No stores. You order what you want and it is delivered in x hours.

    Set it up as a non-profit to break up the duopoly. Give the farmers somewhere to sell their produce besides those jerks. I might be showing my naivety, but I believe with that much money on the logistics, it should be able to compete price-wise.

    • Rusty Raven M
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      24 days ago

      I honestly doubt 150 million would be enough for that.

      What I would probably do in that regard is look at where the missing links are in allowing a more community based supply chain. Most likely something like developing community hubs that can serve as a distribution link between suppliers and consumers. Farmers and bigger suppliers are not generally set up to provide retail quantities, but you can often set up “group buying” schemes to buy in the bigger quantities and divide them up. But they tend to be limited by the lack of places to store and distribute those purchases. If you could set up points that could do that you could have people pick up directly or organise deliveries using uber or other locally available delivery options. Because everything is pre-ordered you would not be trying to handle a retail style shop but could provide a lot of the benefits. If you could provide the initial funds for communities to set up something like that and they could collect a small amount to provide ongoing running costs it would be self sustainable.

      This already happens on a limited basis, through places like CERES and community centres. It even happens informally within groups - we have people at work that regularly take shares in a cow and have had things like bulk mango or pumpkin purchases split up there!