French bank sets up ‘eBay for farmers’

A French bank has set up a website offering farmers a way to sell produce direct to consumers.

Directetbon.com is an eBay-style site that lets farmers easily and cheaply advertise their products to consumers looking for regional delicacies or locally-sourced food.

Consumers simply enter in a search window the type of food they are looking for, or put in a region, and the site displays farmers that are selling produce. The consumer can then order as much, or as little, of a product as they want and pay for it all at once online.

“A lot of farmers wanted to sell their own production and we think that a lot of people want to buy local and direct from their area,” Fabien Henry, head of agriculture at Banque Populaire de l’Ouest told Poultry World at the 2011 Space Livestock Exhibition being held in Rennes, France, this week.

“They are really interested in where they buy, how they buy, how the meat is produced.”

Mr Henry said French people were very interested in purchasing regional specialities, such as poultry from the Bourg en Bresse region, cider from Brittany and salt from the south of France.

“There is also a lot of wine on the site, because while vineyards have their own websites, they don’t have the visibility. If you’ve got a small site and you don’t do advertising, then nobody will come to your site.”

Despite being launched only two months ago, Directbon.com now has 200 farmers paying a $50 per month fee to list on the site and sell their produce. More than 80 of the farmers on the list are in Brittany,

For more stories from the 2011 SPACE Livestock Exhibition in France visit Poultry World or follow us on Twitter #poultryworld for all the up to the minute news.