Madison entrepreneur Heather Hilleren wanted to make it easier for restaurants, hospitals, schools and grocery stores to purchase products from local growers with Greenleaf Market, the Web site she started in 2007. In October 2008 Hilleren reached a milestone when product was delivered to two Dane County-based grocery stores as a result of purchases facilitated through the site.

Greenleaf connected Metcalfe's Sentry and Pierce’s Market to Fennimore Auction, a wholesale produce auction supplied by local Amish growers based in Fennimore, Wisconsin. Without Greenleafmarket.com, this transaction may never have happened.

“The Web site has enabled us to find new buyers without having to travel. It’s going to reduce our phone bill, and the automated invoicing system works great. It’s laid out so you can easily put your products up in a matter of minutes,” noted Tim Slack of Fennimore Auction.

Hilleren was able to develop and test greenleafmarket.com with the help of a National Science Foundation Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, awarded in April 2007. In her quest for funding, Hilleren received helpful advice from Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network (WEN) partners, Ayla Annac, WEN southwest regional director, and Phil Sobocinski, assistant director of corporate relations at UW-Madison.

In 2008 Hilleren received a $500,000 Phase II NSF SBIR to further develop her site with hopes to take it national in 2009.

“We have been beta testing this summer and making additional changes using the Phase II funding, taking everything that we’ve learned from the beta test site,” said Hilleren.

The Greenleaf Market site is one of a kind. On the site, buyers can easily connect with local growers, while growers can create an online profile, automate price sheets and find buyers for their products. In addition to fruits and vegetables, Greenleaf also markets locally produced meats, dairy, eggs and some nonperishable goods. 

Though there are sites that do some of the functions of Greenleaf Market, nothing on the Web today puts it all together like Hilleren’s site for eventual multi-state local buying and selling.

That’s why Hilleren along with WEN partners Greg Lawless, director of agricultural initiatives at Thrive, and Anne Pfeiffer at UW-Extension’s Agricultural Innovation Center, got involved to educate producers and buyers about this new valuable tool.

“We came up with a marketing strategy together and we implemented it,” said Lawless. “It was a major time commitment, and we did it because her business supported Thrive’s larger economic development goal, which was getting Wisconsin farm products into groceries in the Madison region.”

Pfeiffer assisted Hilleren in conducting workshops around the state, making growers and buyers aware of the site and explaining how it works.

“The biggest problem we have is the misconception about what the site is,” said Hilleren. “Anne has been getting the word out, explaining it to people –that it is free, just jump on and use it.”

And when the first delivery was made to Metcalfe’s and Pierce’s, Lawless and Pfeiffer were there alongside Hilleren once again.

“Greg went to Pierce’s and Metcalfe’s when the delivery came, making sure everybody was happy, that the quality was good,” said Hilleren. “It was actually a huge learning curve. A lot of places haven’t sold to grocery stores, but they want to. And a lot of grocers haven’t purchased from local growers, but they want to.”

In addition to going national in 2009, Hilleren hopes that more people and businesses will use the site, which will have additional capabilities in 2009. “In ’09 you will be able to use it for buying clubs in addition to selling to grocery stores, hospitals, schools and restaurants.”

Buying Clubs operate like a virtual farmers market, where employees of a business can place orders from local growers greenleafmarket.com. Those orders are then delivered to the business’s parking lot at the end of the week.

As more businesses and growers use Greenleaf Market, Hilleren is closer to her goal of providing easy access to fresh, healthy, locally grown food. “We just need to get the word out, so people understand what we do.”

To find out more about Greenleaf Market, check out the Web site at http://www.greenleafmarket.com