JANUARY 2019 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


35


Online platform connects producers, consumers Dutch entrepreneur wanted grass-fed meat but making a connection was tough


by MYRNA STARK LEADER VANCOUVER –When


entrepreneur Victor Straatman moved with his family to Vancouver from the


Netherlands in summer 2015, he went online seeking grass- fed meat from a local farmer. Through a referral, he finally


found a source and placed his order. But he had to meet the farmer in a North Vancouver parking lot. The farmer had driven six hours from his farm for the meeting , and didn’t take advance payment. They’d never met. And the transaction took up a good part of Straatman’s day, and the farmer’s, too. “I was happy to get the


product, but I thought, ‘Who’s going to do this?’” says Straatman, the founder of a full-service online marketing agency in Holland. Straatman knew through his experience that he could help consumers find quality meat locally and conveniently. He also saw the opportunity to educate consumers about how their meat is raised to help encourage them to support small- scale BC farmers. Meatme.ca was born. “I’ve seen this already happening in Europe so I was confident that we could replicate the model


transformed into an open model where you pick and choose all the cuts you like and it’s delivered.” Today, Meatme is his full-


time job. The company works with seven producers of grass- fed and antibiotic-free meat: Empire Valley Ranch outside of 100 Mile House for beef; Aldergrove’s Giesbrecht Farm and Blue Sky Ranch in the Nicola Valley for pork; Central Park Farms in Langley for chicken; Harmony Farm lamb at Monte Lake; turkey from K&M Farms in Abbotsford and seafood from Haida Wild. Meatme purchases whole animals cut to specifications. Through a partnership with a storage and fulfillment centre which keeps the meat, orders are ice-packed in recyclable, insulated cardboard boxes and shipped to the purchaser. Straatman says customers


Victor Straatman is working with small-scale meat producers to fill a niche urban market. SUBMITTED PHOTO


here and help smaller scale, ethical farms,” he says. “I started by crowd-funding one cow, basically selling one cow and everyone would buy a share into it like in the past when you used to buy a half or quarter of beef. We broke the cow into 30 shares. Now, it has


appreciate the quality of the products and the convenience. Most buy monthly or every quarter. A private company, Meatme


won’t disclose revenues but Straatman says sales in 2018 tripled versus 2017. It now has about 1,300 customers mostly in the Lower Mainland, as well as


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