Case Study Story: How a Warsaw startup rewired the path from farm to city

A small team in Warsaw looked at three stubborn problems:

• small farmers couldn’t reach city buyers,

• families were paying more for produce that wasn’t truly fresh,

• good food was being thrown away.

Instead of starting with an app, they started with a question: what’s the shortest, most trustworthy path from field to family?

They mapped it backwards.

Trust first. If farmers don’t get paid fast, nothing else matters. So the plan put instant payouts at the center.

Predictability next. Buyers won’t change habits without reliability. So they set fixed morning stops in the city, like bus routes you can plan around.

Inclusion by design. Not every grower loves smartphones. They added SMS so older farmers could list what they harvested, fast.

Demand before wheels. Trucks should carry what’s already spoken for. Pre-orders shaped each day’s inventory. Walk-ups cleared the rest.

Fairness vs speed. Algorithms love the richest neighborhoods. They coded a simple rule: rotate stops so underserved areas weren’t left out.

What followed in year one (self-reported):

Regular farmer access to city markets: 12% → 67%

Average price to families (veg): $1.80/kg → $1.20/kg

On-farm waste: 21% → 7%

Farm-to-city time: 3–5 days → 12–24 hours

Monthly farmers served: 45 → 480

App users: 5,300

Why this matters to builders in any sector:

Start with the bottleneck of trust (payouts, schedules, transparency).

Use tech as a bridge (SMS + simple forms), not a gate.

Anchor demand before you move trucks, people, or inventory.

Publish a fairness rule so efficiency doesn’t erase equity.

Measure a tight set of numbers every month and adjust routes, not just ads.

If you’re copying this play in your world: map your stops, collect pre-orders, pay instantly, rotate fairly, and tell people exactly when and where to meet you. The tools can change. The logic travels.