Practical information
Description
Timeline
Stakeholders
Strengths and offer
Urban logistics
Positive impacts
Needs
Logistical challenges
Practical information
What?
Linked.Farm is a cooperative digital IT platform that supports the logistics, sales and administration of producers, farmers, shops, logistics hubs, wholesalers and customers. It provides tools for managing orders, delivery notes, invoices, purchases, online payments, reusable packaging and logistics rules per hub.
Who?
The Linked.Farm cooperative, founded by Laurence Claerhout, in connection with farmers, producers, shops, grocery stores, restaurants, logistics hubs, citizen initiatives and private or professional customers.
Where?
Mainly in Belgium, with producers located in Belgium and sometimes elsewhere in Europe.
Headquarters: Asbeekstraat 4, 1730 Asse.
The tool is deployed through local hubs, each with its own geographical scope, time slots and pick-up or delivery options.
When?
The cooperative was created in 2015. The platform remains active, with tools, FAQs and hub formulas available in French, Dutch and English.
Contact
Laurence Claerhout
+32 472 50 81 53 — we@linkedfarm.eu
Resources
linkedfarm.eu; Linked.Farm FAQ; Good Food Brussels; Voedsel Anders; Landbouwleven.
Description
Linked.Farm is a cooperative platform providing digital infrastructure for organising short food chains. It does not present itself as a conventional commercial intermediary between producers and customers: producers remain in control of their prices, while the cooperative mainly provides IT tools to manage sales, orders, stocks, deliveries, pick-ups, invoices, payments and reusable containers.
The tool can be used by a producer with their own webshop, but also by a multi-producer hub, shop, grocery store, wholesaler, horeca actor or logistics operator. Each hub can define its own rules: geographical scope, delivery days, pick-up points, margins, assortments, schedules and distribution methods.
The project is interesting because it shows that short-chain logistics is not only about trucks, depots or delivery rounds. It also relies on a digital organisational layer: who orders what, when, from which producer, to which hub, with which delivery note, invoice, payment, container and pick-up or delivery option.
Timeline
2015
Creation of the Linked.Farm cooperative.
2020
Strong public visibility during the Covid crisis, which accelerated interest in short food chains and tools to better organise them.
2024–2026
The public platform remains active in French, Dutch and English, with FAQs, hub formulas and support tools.
Stakeholders
Producers, farmers and processors, who offer their products through the platform and remain in control of their prices.
Private and professional customers, who order through a webshop or hub.
Shops, grocery stores, wholesalers, restaurants and horeca actors, which can use Linked.Farm to organise their supply or sales.
Logistics entrepreneurs and local hubs, which handle the actual logistics: collection, sorting, consolidation, delivery or pick-up.
The Linked.Farm cooperative, which provides the digital infrastructure, management tools, support and start-up training.
Cooperators and impact investors, since the platform operates through a cooperative model.
Strengths and offer
Cooperative digital platform for organising short food chains.
Webshop for an individual producer or multi-producer hub.
Management of orders, stocks, invoices, payments, delivery notes, purchases, pick-ups and deliveries.
Support for reusable packaging and management of empty containers.
Possibility for each hub to define its own rules for delivery, pick-up, margins, assortment and calendar.
Reduction of administrative coordination costs for producers, shops and hubs.
Producers remain free to set their prices, without a conventional commercial intermediary imposed by the platform.
Cooperative model: hubs and cooperators co-own the platform, following the principle “one cooperator = one vote”.
Economies of collaboration between producers, shops and operators, rather than a conventional logic of logistical concentration.
Urban logistics
How does it work?
A user shops online through a hub or webshop. The hub can be a producer, shop, citizen initiative, cooperative, wholesaler or logistics actor that collects, sorts, delivers or distributes products from several producers. Linked.Farm provides the digital tool that organises orders, payments, invoices, delivery notes, pick-up or delivery options and the rules specific to each hub. The cooperative does not directly carry out the physical logistics: it enables local actors to coordinate it more effectively.
Why is it interesting?
Because Linked.Farm shows that the main obstacle for short food chains is not only transport. It is also coordination: small volumes, many producers, different schedules, multiple pick-up points, invoicing, payments, packaging, stocks, customer information and delivery rounds. By providing shared infrastructure, the platform makes these chains more legible and more practicable without imposing a single logistics model.
Which obstacles does it respond to?
Fragmentation of short food chains, administrative burden, difficulty mutualising small volumes, lack of stock visibility, complexity of payments and invoicing, diversity of pick-up or delivery points, difficulty combining producer autonomy with commercial efficiency, and the need for shared tools to make local initiatives economically viable.
Identified nodes / obstacles
Transport; storage; time; multi-actor coordination; administration; delivery route planning; management of pick-up points; stock visibility; invoicing; online payment; management of reusable containers; cost sharing; articulation between producer autonomy and hub efficiency.
Positive impacts
Environment — potential reduction of separate trips if hubs make it possible to mutualise orders, pick-ups or delivery rounds. However, the impact depends strongly on the actual logistics organised by each hub.
Space — possibility of grouping certain flows in deposit or pick-up places, rather than multiplying individual trips or dispersed deliveries.
Neighbourhood — hubs can bring local supply closer to neighbourhoods, shops, citizen initiatives or existing pick-up points.
Social relations — possible strengthening of links between producers, hubs, shops, customers and local initiatives, within a model that values cooperation rather than conventional commercial intermediation.