How this Slovenian Food Hub Fulfills Over 4,000 Orders per Month using Local Line

Mali Plac: the not so little, “little market for the future”

Mali Plac, which translates to "Little Market for the Future," is a thriving food hub in Slovenia dedicated to connecting local farmers with consumers in an innovative way. Founded by Ana Ljubojević in 2014, Mali Plac operates with a unique vendor rotation system, direct farmer-to-consumer delivery, and a commitment to seasonal food offerings. By implementing Local Line as their operating system, Mali Plac has streamlined their processes, improved customer experience, and saved valuable time and money!

Managing complexity in a 6000-customer food hub

Before discovering Local Line, Mali Plac faced multiple challenges in managing their growing food hub. With 30 different vendors providing a constantly changing selection of seasonal products, Ana, with the help of Nikolina, needed a solution that could handle real-time inventory updates, simplify order management, and enhance customer experience. "We didn't want a traditional e-commerce website," Ana explains. "We needed something that could adapt. Our inventory changes daily, and we needed a system to keep up."

The challenge? The platform needed to be natively built for Slovenian citizens, which meant they needed language, currency, timezones, and taxes to all be localized to Slovenia. With the help of the Mali Plac team, Local Line translated the storefront and back office to meet their needs while also becoming available in a few other languages, such as French and Spanish. In June 2024, Mali Plac transitioned to Local Line. Within six months, they onboarded over 6,000 customers, and now, they fulfill approximately 1,000 orders weekly, year-round!

What does their ordering cycle look like? 

At Mali Plac, Ana wanted to keep the connection between customers and farmers as close as possible. To achieve this, all farmers are responsible for their delivery to 30 pre-defined pick-up locations, providing opportunities for connection and education at least once a week. Here is their schedule:

• Thursday: Farmers submit their product availability for the following week.
• Friday Morning: The team updates Local Line with available products and limits for high-demand items.
• Friday at 1 PM: The online store opens and customers are notified that they can now place their orders. They usually receive over 100 orders within the first hour.
• Tuesday-Friday: Farmers deliver their orders directly to pickup locations. Each location has a specific schedule, ensuring fresh food is straight from the farm.  

How Local Line improved their operations

With such a high volume of orders, finding the right food hub software was essential for this dynamic, direct-to-consumer food hub. Here are the key features that improved weekly operations for their team:

Live inventory management

Farmers send their available products weekly, and the Mali Plac team adjusts stock levels within Local Line – ensuring accurate inventory prior to the order cycle. This eliminated previous issues of over-selling and under-supplying products. "One of my favorite features is the stock limit function," Ana says. "Before, I would wake up in the middle of the night worrying that we oversold products. Now, I can sleep peacefully, knowing everything is under control."

Efficient order processing

Customers can browse available products and order through Local Line’s easy-to-use interface. Vendors receive direct notifications once an order is placed and can begin preparing fulfillment immediately. "Customers place their orders every week as if they are shopping at an online market, but instead of aggregated fulfillment, the farmers receive the orders and fulfill them," explains Ana. "This means everything is as fresh as possible." 

Unlike many food hubs that rely on centralized warehouses, Mali Plac ensures that farmers personally deliver products to over 30 pickup locations. With Local Line, each farmer sees exactly what they need to deliver, when, and to who, significantly reducing back-and-forth communication. "We used to have to manually coordinate who was bringing what product to which pickup point," Ana continues. "Now, it’s all automated, and the vendors know exactly where to go without any confusion."

On-the-go management

With their lean 3-person team, Ana and Nikolina love the mobile-friendly interface, allowing them to update inventory and troubleshoot issues from anywhere. "I can literally be at the market, notice we’re running low on something, and update stock levels right there on my phone," says Ana. "Before Local Line, I would have to wait until I got back to my laptop, which often led to delays and mistakes."

Automated customer communications

Local Line has simplified customer communication for the Mali Plac team. When managing a customer base of over 6,000 users, communications can quickly become overwhelming.  After migrating, Ana shared, "We were shocked by how positively and quickly people accepted the new system," 

With the click of a button, the team can send order reminders and updates to thousands of customers, ensuring everyone stays informed. The results speak for themselves: they received 100 orders in the first hour after their storefront opened.

"With Local Line, we can handle complex logistics effortlessly. The system does most of the work, and we only need one employee to assist with basic admin work," says Ana.

Leveraging Local Line for community-centered growth

Mali Plac has successfully blended modern technology with relationship-building. Farmers personally deliver their harvest, engage with customers, and even receive direct feedback. "We want the farmers to feed the customers—not just sell to them," Nikolina explains. "Customers don’t just pick up food; they meet the people who grow it. They hear stories, they learn about seasonal cycles, and they appreciate the value of fresh, local food. Local Line has enabled us to grow our vision."

Looking ahead, Mali Plac aims to:

• Sell boxes and bundles: They are exploring ways to offer curated meal boxes featuring multiple farmers leveraging Local Line’s Box Builder.
• Create more recipes, videos, and educational content: A big goal is to continue to educate their customers about where their food comes from. Leveraging recipe PDFs, videos, and more; they want to continue to highlight the farmer.
• Expand pickup locations: As demand grows, they are looking to add more pick up locations across Slovenia.

Using Local Line, Mali Plac has proven how a food hub can operate without warehouses, intermediaries, or excess overhead. By focusing on community, technology, and efficiency, Ana and Nikolina have built a system that not only supports local farmers but also ensures customers receive the freshest food possible.

"We’ve never spent a cent on advertising. Our growth is 100% through trust, quality, and word-of-mouth. With Local Line, we can scale that even further."