venn · advisory · shared supply
bolota, chícharo, barbela, cuscos transmontanos. they went out of use for more than one reason, but one of them is simple: nobody was ordering, so nobody planted.
the problem
a crop like grass pea only stays in the ground if someone commits to a quantity before it is sown. that is a season of risk carried by the smallest business in the chain, and a restaurant that buys twenty kilos a year does not move it.
one restaurant cannot write that order book alone. we know, because we have been trying. what we have is a working pilot with a single farm, two hectares in balasar, and a set of terms a farmer was willing to sign.
there is european money moving toward protein crops and toward farms that want to switch to them. the capital is arriving on the growing side. the half that is still missing is committed demand, and that is the half a group of kitchens can organise.
plantago, lifted from the field
the pilot
the terms cover pre-payment, a harvest commitment, planting planned together, quarterly reviews, and a crop-failure clause written on what the grower says is fair. two pages, no legal language, something a farmer would sign over a coffee. that is the template we bring to the next one.
what a commitment has to contain
notebooks out in the field, may 2025
what we bring
who this is for
a single school or hospital contract buys more of one pulse in a season than a restaurant does in a decade. sourcing now scores in tenders. this is the programme that turns that score into a crop.
several kitchens under one purchasing function can commit to a crop a season ahead and spread it across menus. we do the agronomy conversation and the paperwork; you bring the volume.
on your own you cannot write the order book either. together with others you can, and the terms are already drafted.
start
one message is enough to start. we will tell you which crops are realistic for your volume and which growers we would put you in front of.