37% of households in the US (43 million homes) have a food garden. Conservatively that’s $8b worth of fruit, vegetables, nuts and other produce grown in backyards. Virtually none of this produce ever reaches the market, and a significant amount (billions worth) will go to waste.
Concurrently, over 20 million people in the US live in a food desert. Accessing fresh produce is exceptionally difficult and prohibitively expensive. This leads to malnutrition.
RipeNearMe is the first peer-to-peer marketplace for home-growers to sell, share or swap their excess produce. Users can search by location or food type, visually see what’s growing nearby, connect with the grower, and request produce in minutes.
For the first time you can subscribe to an individual fruit tree (or any listing) and be notified when it’s ripe and ready to pick. Growers can have an unlimited number of subscribers, and can therefore be confident that they’ll have buyers when in season.