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2024 was a big year at Local Line and as we reflect, we want to begin by expressing our heartfelt gratitude. Thank you to our customers for trusting us as a key partner in running your businesses. Farmers, food hubs, and suppliers of all kinds work hard every day to tend to the land, protect the environment, and feed your communities. We consider it a great privilege to help you grow your businesses and we look forward to a rocking 2025 together!
It’s no secret that this year was challenging for farms, with the USDA reporting that approximately 5,700 farms will shut down in 2024. We’re doing our part to reverse this trend, and are creating the best commerce software on the market for the local food industry.
Our collective hard work is paying off. Our recent ROI analysis showed us that farms using Local Line grow sales by 23% annually and increase their average order size by 9.5%! For every $1 spent on Local Line, farms generate a whopping $32 in incremental sales and approximately $10 in additional take-home income. These numbers are proof that together we’re making a real difference—and that’s something worth celebrating!
Before we start talking about the great things we have planned in 2025, here’s a review of the main things we launched this year:
We started 2024 by launching new order label exports and a new LocalPay point-of-sale (POS) to better support users selling online and in-person. We then added the ability to add product package codes to improve searchability and traceability. Finally, we released a handful of significant SEO improvements to help Local Line storefronts become more discoverable on Google.
Then, in March, we announced we were teaming up with Chipotle for the ‘Local Farmer Grant Program’. Together, we awarded multiple grants every week to farmers and producers throughout the United States to improve on-farm sustainability.
In April we switched our focus to the upcoming growing season and worked on critical workflow improvements before the busy season arrived! We added new bulk actions to save you time from manually clicking into each product, customer, and order. The new bulk actions made it faster to process needs approval orders, send emails to customers, and manage on-sale items in your storefront.
Shortly after that we launched coupon codes to help farms promote ongoing sales, add offers to new products, create referral programs, or treat their best customers with a discount. We brought in Corinna Bench from My Digital Farmer and hosted a workshop outlining how to maximize sales using coupon codes.
One of our major updates for food hubs was vendor payouts, which expanded our LocalPay functionality to allow for automated digital vendor payments. We know manually paying your vendors week after week can be time-consuming and, frankly, annoying. But with vendor payouts, you can pay all your vendors directly from Local Line with the click of a button!
In June, Local Line became multi-lingual, launching in French, Spanish, and Slovenian. We have plans to add more languages in 2025, and will soon allow each user to customize their preferred storefront language.
In July & August we built features that improved storefront conversions. We launched our best storefront yet, created two automated abandoned cart emails, and added the ability to track your marketing campaigns by integrating your Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics Tag. Since launching our abandoned cart emails this September, farms have recovered more than $90,000 in would-be lost sales!”
In the fall, we worked hard to build features and workflows to support CSA farmers. We made multiple enhancements to subscriptions, including increased flexibility for fulfillment frequencies and dates, more bulk actions, and helpful filters to keep organized. We also launched Box Builder, which allows you to bundle products into boxes. Box Builder helps you increase sales, fulfill orders faster, and simplify inventory management.
In addition to the 60+ product updates, we also got the chance to connect and tell the stories of real businesses finding success on Local Line such as Zeus Produce, who acquired 45+ new wholesale buyers since switching, Deck Family Farm, who saves 20+ hours while fulfilling 300+ orders weekly, or Blue Lizard Farm who uses Local Line to sell his products grown in the desert! You can read all our success stories here.
2024 was filled with more than just new features. On top of everything we launched, we also took important steps in establishing a nationwide local food sourcing network to help grocers, restaurants, and distributors buy direct from farms. This year we did important work with Chipotle, Tops, Roche Bros, and many more, helping to collectively source tens of millions of dollars worth of local food for their locations.
In 2025 we will continue expanding this area of our business to create opportunities for the farms, producers, and food hubs we work with to build wholesale relationships with various buyers.
As we wrap up 2024, we are filled with gratitude and determination. This year we witnessed yet another inspiring display for resilience across every area of the local food system. Together we’ve accomplished a lot but it’s only the beginning.
As we look ahead to 2025, we remain committed to building tools that empower you to thrive. Thank you for trusting Local Line to be part of your story.
Before we close off, we wanted to share a list of all the 60+ features and enhancements our team has launched this year. As always, if you have any questions for our team, please do not hesitate to contact info@localline.ca. Here’s to another great year at Local Line!
