Our project is open to individual students or groups.

Our e-commerce ecosystem connects consumers with their local producers and suppliers of fresh food and other artisanal products. We work with entrepreneurs and small businesses to help get their unique, high quality products more known by consumers. Our vision is to make fresh, unique and wholesome local products more available and accessible.

We would like to work with students in helping us support our businesses to succeed.

The particular challenge we are facing is how to effectively optimize our logistics network to minimize costs, travel time, travel distance, and environmental impacts, while maintaining high product quality when moving our suppliers goods to our markets and end consumers. Some questions that could be answered in helping us face this challenge include:

• Should we be building out more of our own logistics systems? Or should we be partnering with 3rd party logistical networks? Does this strategy change when dealing with suppliers in certain geographical areas? (eg. rural vs urban, US vs Canada vs EU)
• What considerations need to be made for temperature controlled logistics? (eg. frozen food products)
• What considerations need to be made for live products? (eg. flowers, seedlings, plants, etc)
• What key performance indicators should be measured to ensure we are optimizing logistical networks?
• Are forecasting improvements needed to effectively manage logistics? If so, how can we improve forecasting?
• What disruptive logistics practices should we be paying attention to and considering for future logistical models?

We are looking for students who can:

• Provide practical solutions to address our challenges
• Generate a high-quality report and presentation for our senior management
• Connect when necessary for consultation and information exchange

We will provide a dedicated contact who is available to provide feedback and direction, as well as answer student questions or put them in contact with relevant stakeholders throughout the project.