To give you a chance to get to know all of the startups a bit better, we asked them some questions. Meet Bygdens Saluhall !
Starting at the base of every societal startup. What problem are you trying to solve?
We are trying to solve the problem of disconnection between food producers and consumers. We want to return to as high a degree as possible of locally produced food where the consumers know how the food has been produced. The supermarket and import food models are alienating consumers and we want to find a solution that has some of the convenience of a store but that is still a very flexible and strongly locally rooted mode of transaction.
How are you going to solve this? What is your idea?
Our idea is to gather producers in local nodes, we then use a web tool to let local consumers make orders online which are then distributed on set meeting dates in the local nodes. We aim to create both a web tool that the consumers can use and a set of tools for those people that are setting up local nodes.
What impact do you hope to have?
We hope to revive the local food producers all around Sweden. We want to lower the barriers to becoming a producer and help facilitate the shift from an older generation of farmers to a new one. We also want to help in the current efforts of relocalising monetary flows and strengthening the communities that we are involved in.
Focusing more on your team. Who are you? What is your background?
Our team currently consists of Albin Ponnert and Viktor Zaunders. Our backgrounds are fairly diverse and we have a distinct taint of digital media and IT work. We are both part-time farmers and want to create this tool in order to make that part of our lives easier and our rural living environments even more spectacular.
Why did you became societal entrepreneurs? Or really, why do you do what you do?
Because there is such potentiality to do things better. Digital media is coming together with a more highly conscious citizenry to transform most of the ways in which our society work. We want life to be better, especially for those that are are producing the fundament of our whole species, the food producers.
Now a few weeks into the accelerator program. Why did you apply for SoPact? What have you learned so far that you want to share with other societal entrepreneurs?
We had an idea that we have been considering for some time but the opportunity to have a rapid intervention and helping hand from a place like sopact was a great opportunity. Our experience with Sopact is that is really is a great way to gain very valuable perspectives on our ideas, our methods and ourselves. We have made huge leaps in how we are going to work with this startup thanks to the varying feedback and workshops that we have had with Sopact.
If I as a reader want to engage or help you reach your goals of impact. How can I do so? Is there any way to help at this stage?
The most straight forward way right now is to go to our site, bygdenssaluhall.org, and become a support member. We are also trying to get more locations to start organising delivery nodes so if you live somewhere in Sweden and would like to buy local food, try to find local producers and contact us about setting up a node and we will help you along the way! Other than that, spreading the word or coming back to us with feedback is always greatly appreciated!
Photo by Amanda Westin.