Fresh produce from local farms is taking a new route to Gainesville residents: an online farmers’ market.
The virtual marketplace allows shoppers to order fresh foods and other locally made products online, then pick up their purchases within a couple of days. The organization behind the online market, Working Food, is launching its first fall season next month.
Working Food Local Food Connection Director Jasmine Angelini-Knoll said the market is about more than making it easier to buy locally grown produce. It’s an attempt to connect local cultivators with customers and expand access to fresh food across the region.
“With the online market specifically, the goal there was to create this online ordering system that would be similar to finding vendors that you would have at your in-person markets,” Angelini-Knoll said.
Working Food, a Gainesville-based nonprofit founded on seed-saving, food education and community outreach, partners with 10 local food organizations for the market. It also coordinates youth gardening programs and fresh-produce distribution to families and food pantries in the area.
The idea for an online farmers’ market began taking shape in 2025. Working Food launched the marketplace in April, giving customers an opportunity to browse items from multiple local producers and place an order through one online system.
The first season ran from April through June before taking a summer break. The market will reopen for the autumn, with ordering available from Saturday through Monday each week.
After taking in customers’ orders, farms bring their products to Working Food on Wednesday, when the
organization aggregates the orders. Staff then pack individual orders Thursday for customers to pick up that afternoon.
More than 200 people registered for the marketplace during its first season. The market averaged between 12 and 15 orders per week, according to Angelini-Knoll.
The model was inspired in part by the Red Hills Small Farm Alliance, a similar organization in Tallahassee. Both organizations use Local Food Marketplace, a customizable online platform designed for farms, food hubs and Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs).
Red Hills has grown its operation to more than 300 orders a week and works with more than 100 producers, Angelini-Knoll said.
For Working Food, that example shows what the virtual market could eventually become.
A new way to support local farms
For farmers, the online market offers another way to reach customers without requiring them to spend hours at a physical market.
“What I appreciate about this [market] is that the focus is really on meeting the needs of both the producers and the customers,” said Aviva Asher, owner of Nicoya Farm and a Working Food board member.
Asher, who previously worked at several community and urban farms, started Nicoya Farm with her husband in 2016. She sees the online market as a way to make locally grown food more accessible to Gainesville residents.
“I'm excited that there's another option for people in Gainesville who are, you know, wanting to support local farms and buy produce that's grown here in the area to be able to access it,” Asher said.
“There's more and more delivery programs because there's just more and more emphasis on convenience,” Asher said.
But the market also faces a common challenge: It needs both farmers and customers to participate before either side has a strong reason to join.
Nicoya Farm has not generated significant revenue from the online market yet, Asher said. For farmers, adding another sales channel can require extra work to harvest, package and coordinate orders.
“The online market needs vendors and farmers to help grow it so that there is enough product that attracts customers,” Asher said. “So, there's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg game.”
Asher explained that this season will require farmers to figure out how to incorporate online orders into their existing harvest schedules while keeping produce fresh for pickup.
Still, Asher sees potential beyond sales.
“My hope is that it continues to grow, and that the online market is able to provide food…to neighborhoods that have a harder time accessing fresh fruits and vegetables,” Asher said.
Building trust online
Moving a farmers’ market onto a screen also changes one of the traditional market’s biggest advantages: Customers cannot pick up a tomato, inspect a bunch of leafy greens or talk face-to-face with the farmer before making a purchase.
Angelini-Knoll said the online marketplace includes photographs of products and information about the producers but acknowledges that an image cannot completely replicate an in-person shopping experience.
“Sometimes people say that they prefer to see things in person,” Angelini-Knoll said. “A photo is not necessarily going to be the exact representation of what you get in your bag, but I do think it helps a lot with kind of visualizing that piece.”
The online model depends partly on customers developing trust in the growers.
For Teresa Drake, a customer excited to try out the market, that trust is part of the appeal of buying directly from local farmers.
“It's the quickest you can eat farm to table; more nutrients are in the food, and there aren't chemicals if they're organic, and you know who your farmer is,” Drake said.
Drake has shopped at farmers’ markets for years but said getting to a market every week is not always easy. The online system offers a different option: customers can select what they want ahead of time and make one quick pickup.
The ability to choose individual products is also attractive to Drake, who previously participated in a CSA program that allowed members to select what went into their bags.
“I'm hoping that this will be something similar to that, but with more vendors,” Drake said.
Reaching beyond the farmers’ market
For Working Food, convenience is not the only reason to take the market online.
Angelini-Knoll said the organization hopes to eventually establish additional pickup hubs around Gainesville, bringing orders closer to customers in different parts of the city. Home delivery could also become an option in the future.
That expansion could help Working Food reach neighborhoods that are not already served by traditional farmers’ markets, or that have fewer convenient options for buying fresh food.
“It's just advantageous to try to reach some of these places where there may not be the in-person market, and there may be less access to grocery stores in general,” Angelini-Knoll said.
“The goal is to try to make things more accessible over time,” Angelini-Knoll said.
For now, Working Food is still building the system. Farmers are balancing the demands of another market, customers are building trust in local growers and the organization is looking toward a future with more accessibility to fresh produce.