Where to find tomatoes that taste like tomatoes – Several thousand users in OrganicNet digital marketplace system, platform soon to be available in England

Many want to know where tomatoes that taste like tomatoes can be found. Plastic-like, not fully ripe and tasteless varieties can be found in any store – nice to look at, but full of pesticides. It is therefore not surprising that there's an increasing demand for organic food and that the idea of the Novi Sad-based company Eton Digital to establish the first digital marketplace for homegrown, healthy food has proven to be successful. The OrganicNet platform has been available for about a year and has attracted around 200 registered producers and several thousand customers. The advantages of the platform were also recognized by the expert jury of the Aurea 2017 awards, organized by the business portal eKapija for the ninth year in a row, as Eton Digital was awarded a special recognition for innovation.

OrganicNet helps producers reach customers directly, negotiating the conditions and the price themselves. The trade is rated and commented on and the ratings are visible in producers' profiles. As the director of Eton Digital, Boban Tanovic, says for eKapija, the platform helps producers build their reputation.

– It's like knowing someone at the marketplace who sells good fruit, vegetables or chickens – the word about a good product now spreads on the internet as well, gets shared and becomes available to other people as well. That's what our contribution comes down to. This type of marketing means a lot to producers, as does the fact that they can sell their products at realistic prices, and not those that supermarkets insist on. Furthermore, they are free to move within the market and, if their products are good, the results will be there, which will also lead to expanded production.

Our interviewee adds that the platform aims to directly connect people producing homegrown, healthy, organic products with consumers.

– Each person should have access to better, more quality food, especially today, when nearly all food is modified in a way. It's not normal to be able to keep a tomato in the fridge for a month without anything happening to it – Tanovic says.

The director of Eton Digital points out that they are satisfied with their first year of operations, especially because of the producers who believe in their products and the platform.

(Boban Tanovic accepting special Aurea 2017 award for innovation) – When we visited the producers, we saw that they had changed their way of living, dedicating themselves fully to organic production. They believe in this almost religiously and their enthusiasm is transferred to both us and the consumers. When you see someone loving the tomato or the apple they've produced, their belief is inevitably transferred to the consumer as well. This is all very good altogether, and we want to do good things.

Platform upgrade

Tanovic points out that such platforms are never completed and that, if the project proves to be successful, they will continue working on it for the next 15 years and more.

– Such is the nature of the business we're in. It certainly has flaws, but there are also ways to improve things. We get feedback from both the producers and the customers and we are constantly enhancing the platform.

As our interviewee says, Serbia is much too small a market to achieve any kind of bigger success in it, but “if this model works in our market, it will prove to be successful in other markets as well”.

OrganicNet for Great Britain

The OrganicNet platform is designed to suit users' needs on a global level, and, since Eton Digital is headquartered in Great Britain, the plan is for England to be the next market.

– The plans are slowly developing. I live in Great Britain and the market is familiar to me, and we will soon start involving producers in certain areas, implementing the model we've applied in Serbia. We've had very good marketing here, primarily because we are doing something good. We are planning to implement the same principle in the West as well and I hope that we will achieve the same results.

Tanovic adds that they are currently looking for a business partner with which to further develop the platform.

Average transaction EUR 15-20

The OrganicNet marketplace is available in Serbia in both Serbian and English for now. It covers around 20-30% of organic producers and several thousand customers, and it sees an average of 6-7 transactions a day, of an average value of EUR 15-20.

The idea of the founder of OrganicNet is to stimulate small producers and the sale of products up to the first EUR 1,000 is therefore free, after which the platform charges producers 10% per transaction.

Slobodana Subara

Eton digital Novi Sad

eKapija.com Beograd

Eton Digital Novi Sad

eKapija Belgrade

Eton Digital Great Britain

OrganicNet

Aurea

Aurea 2017

investment of the year award

organic food social marketplace

online sale of organic food

online purchase of organic food

organic production

organic agriculture

promotion of organic food

promotion of organic movement

producers of organic food

production of organic food