Portland Food Co-op, located in Portland, Maine, stands as a testament to the power of community-owned grocery stores. With a mission to foster a healthier community and a vibrant local food system, they have grown to serve 7,000 member-owners and the general public for nine years. We sat down with John Crane, the General Manager, to understand how they leverage Local Line to support their local sourcing. Currently, local accounts for 40% of their purchasing, positioning them as a year-round farmers market for all things local.
As a general manager, John Crane experiences the complexities of weekly local food procurement. They manage relationships with 300 local growers and producers, including up to 20 different farmers, depending on the season—which quickly becomes labour-intensive. They handle individual conversations, orders, and invoices efficiently while trying to keep costs affordable for their customer base. The complexity of managing this all deters many local co-ops and grocers from expanding or even operating their local food programs.
"People wonder why more businesses don't focus on local food," John states. "Managing all those individual conversations, orders, and invoices is very labour-intensive and hard to do cost-effectively."
John and his team wanted a solution to these manual tasks. They found Local Line, a platform that simplifies the procurement process from ordering to payment. "Local Line for us fires up first thing in the morning and supports us in three main parts of our business: purchasing, receiving, and accounting,” explains John.
The adoption of Local Line has strengthened Portland Food Co-op's relationships with its suppliers and producers. The ease of ordering through Local Line gives Portland Food Co-op oversight on what’s available, what has been ordered, and how much they owe at a glance.
"We are a better business partner to our suppliers," John states. "We don't have to do back-and-forth with them, and we are much easier to do business with." It’s a win-win for everyone: the team Portland Food Co-op and the 300+ local producers and growers they work with.
Not only is ordering easier, it has resulted in more consistency in ordering and restocking. Better consistency in supply in-store translates to better service for their customers, who rely on finding the products they need.
"Our ability to be more consistent in what we have in our produce case is because of Local Line." - John, Portland Food Co-op
Having access to detailed records of purchases by item and supplier is a huge asset to John and his team when making informed decisions for the upcoming season or year. “We always have a record of what we purchased from who and when we did it, but we never had that in such an accessible form,” explains John. This made leveraging this data a substantial manual task. With Local Line, they’re able to export their data at any point and monitor their data in Local Line’s reports and analytics dashboard. They can see data such as pricing changes, sustainability metrics, availability, order history, and more.
John also explains how this data has been an asset for new team members. “We have years of ordering history by farm and season at anyone's fingertips," he says. Any team member, no matter how long they have been with Portland Food Co-op can refer back to previous orders from previous years. “In any grocery store, to not have all your knowledge locked up in one person’s head is huge! If someone is not there for a day, any team member can jump on for them, which makes the business run so much better.”
Since using Local Line for their local food sourcing, John and his team have saved about 20% of time on their labour. Having this system allows staff to spend more time engaging with customers rather than handling backroom administrative tasks. This shift enhances the overall shopping experience and operational efficiency: “Our team has so much more time to be out on the sales floor actually talking to customers and not hiding in a back room over a computer. So I do feel our labour hours being much better distributed to customer-facing tasks.”
When asking John for advice for other co-op or grocery managers considering implementing Local Line, he says: “My experience has been whenever you're bringing on a new system or a new program, the people factor is the one that people forget about.” Gaining buy-in from staff and suppliers is crucial. "Talk to your people, both your team and suppliers you work with ahead of time, get the buy-in ahead of time," John recommends. "Starting with a few reliable suppliers and gradually expanding can help smooth the transition."
At the end of the day, implementation can be scary but can do wonders with your efficiency across departments.
“At a point, you get too big. I've been around long enough that getting receipts that are the back of the envelope that were on the floor of the truck, was still a fairly normal thing. And we're still open to that. I enjoy that that's still part of our local food movement.
But, I'm glad it's not the majority of orders, though. And most of our folks can embrace a little bit of technology, such as being on a system that just makes things so much easier to deal with.
And our bookkeeper appreciates Local Line immensely. Getting electronic invoices, and not a collection of mud soaked pieces of paper on her desk.”
Looking ahead, Portland Food Co-op anticipates the integration of Local Line with their point-of-sale system, Catapult by ECRS. This integration promises to eliminate dual data entry, further enhancing efficiency by streamlining ordering, payment, and sales processes.
“I’ve been so excited about this integration for so long! We have Local Line, which is how we purchase and pay. And then we have a POS system which is how we sell. Currently, they’re siloed, so everything gets done twice. Having them integrate would be the biggest push towards efficiency that we've experienced for a long time.”
Initially focusing on produce, John plans to expand Local Line's use to other store categories. The goal is to bring more suppliers onto the platform, further leveraging the benefits of streamlined operations and efficient payment processing. "We want to make a concerted effort to get more people onto the platform," he shares.
Additionally, leveraging Local Line’s supplier discovery feature, John hopes to find new producers and growers in their region to add to their cohort. This feature allows John to search using highly detailed criteria, including location, food safety standards, growing practices, product pricing, and more, to fill any gaps in their offering.
Portland Food Co-op's partnership with Local Line showcases the impact of embracing technology in local food procurement. By simplifying operations and strengthening supplier relationships, Portland Food Co-op continues to fulfill its mission of supporting the local food system.
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