FarmDrop
FarmDrop L3C operates a Maine-based online farmers market connecting 65+ local farms with 1,000+ consumers across 25 pickup hubs in Downeast, Northern, MidMaine, and Southern Maine via a 5% take-rate, pre-paid harvest-to-order marketplace, with additional Food for Health, school nutrition, and restaurant/retail channels.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2011
- HeadquartersCape Elizabeth, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingDigital Commerce or Content
What FarmDrop does
FarmDrop L3C is a woman-owned, mission-driven Maine-based online farmers market operating as an online marketplace that connects 65+ small Maine farms and food producers with 1,000+ consumers across 25 pickup locations in four regions: Downeast, Northern Maine, MidMaine, and Southern Maine. The platform — built over more than a decade of co-design with farmers, nonprofits, and customers — supports a pre-paid harvest-to-order ordering model, multi-farm order aggregation, pickup-hub logistics coordination across community-host venues (churches, libraries, general stores, farms), and program-specific modules including Food for Health (surplus purchasing for food-security redistribution), FarmDrop Goes to School (school nutrition procurement), Food for Health Online Store (Buy One, Donate One), and a Meat Locker for custom-cut whole/partial animal orders. The Producer Portal lets suppliers set their own prices and listings, while integrations with Stripe, Twilio, and ActiveCampaign handle payments, SMS notifications, and email communications. The platform also supports an additional layer of community-building content through the FarmDrop Stories documentary series and Patreon-funded short films about partner farms.
The business model is a transaction-fee marketplace: producers retain 95% of sales and FarmDrop retains a 5% platform fee covering technology, marketing, sales, and operations (this percentage has been raised over time as grant funding declined and costs rose). A customer-paid pickup/fulfillment fee at checkout compensates the Market Hub Managers who fulfill each order at community locations. Beyond the consumer marketplace, FarmDrop generates activity in three additional channels: (i) restaurants and retail stores (12 buyers as of 2025) using the platform alongside their existing retail/wholesale supply, (ii) school nutrition programs (13 directors as of 2025) through the FarmDrop Goes to School program, and (iii) food-security organizations (5 partners including Healthy Island Project, Friendship Cottage, Conscious Cafe, Northern Maine Partners, and Winterfest Produce Boxes) via Food for Health. FarmDrop reinvests 2% of all sales into the Food for Health program, and the L3C structure channels major donations through Healthy Island Project as a fiscal sponsor to enable tax-deductible giving.
Founded in 2011 as a Blue Hill Wine Shop sideline and pivoted to an online farmers market in 2015, FarmDrop is led by sole CEO Hannah Semler, a Blue Hill native who took over the business with a co-founder in 2018 and has run it alone since the co-founder's departure after COVID. The company is headquartered in Blue Hill, Maine, has 1–10 employees, and has been bootstrapped, supplemented by a $25,000 grant from the Maine Technology Institute (2020). It is currently expanding from a Downeast origin into three additional Maine regions in partnership with the Maine Department of Education and Department of Public Health Offices, while pursuing international knowledge exchange with organizations in Panama and Mexico and a collaboration with Sustainable Harvest International on positioning its software as a reusable 'community food web weaving' tool.
FarmDrop firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- FarmDrop
- Legal name
- FarmDrop L3C
- Website
- https://farmdrop.us
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2011
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- FarmDrop L3C operates a Maine-based online farmers market connecting 65+ local farms with 1,000+ consumers across 25 pickup hubs in Downeast, Northern, MidMaine, and Southern Maine via a 5% take-rate, pre-paid harvest-to-order marketplace, with additional Food for Health, school nutrition, and restaurant/retail channels.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
FarmDrop industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Online Farmers Market
- NAICS
- Farm Labor Contractors and Crew Leaders (115115)
- SIC
- Agricultural Services (700)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Farmers’ Markets & Farm Stands (Fresh Food) (CRAHAHAE)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Grain Handling & Farmgate Services (Retailer/Co-op Adjacent) (AFABAJAN)
Keywords
Where FarmDrop is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Cape Elizabeth
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
FarmDrop business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Digital Commerce or Content
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain
Revenue model
- Marketplace Transaction Fee: FarmDrop charges producers a 5% fee on sales, meaning producers keep 95% of their sales revenue. FarmDrop collects the remaining 5% to cover platform maintenance, tech, marketing, and operations. The company has increased this percentage over time as costs rose.
- Pickup / Fulfillment Fee: A small fee paid by the customer at checkout covers Market Hub Managers who fulfill each order. This fee compensates the local coordinators who organize pickup logistics at each community hub location.
- Sales Reinvestment into Food for Health: FarmDrop currently reinvests 2% of all sales into the Food for Health program, which purchases surplus food from farms and distributes it to food security organizations. This is both a revenue allocation and a social impact mechanism.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Producer revenue share — 95% to producers, 5% to FarmDrop |
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Customer pickup/fulfillment fee |
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Food for Health — buy one, donate one |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels6 records
Marketing channels10 records
FarmDrop product offering
Product offeringCore offering
FarmDrop operates a custom-built online farmers market platform that connects over 65 Maine farms and food producers directly with households, schools, restaurants, and food security organizations across 25 pickup locations in four Maine regions. Customers place pre-paid harvest-to-order purchases through the marketplace, and producers fulfill orders for scheduled contactless pickup at community hub locations. The platform charges producers a 5% transaction fee on sales and reinvests a share of revenue into the Food for Health food access program.
Product overview
FarmDrop is a Maine-based online farmers market operating as an L3C (Low-Income Limited Liability Company). The core product is the FarmDrop Marketplace, a custom-built ecommerce platform connecting over 65 Maine farms with 1,000+ customers across 25 pickup locations. The platform includes FarmDrop Stories (documentary films about producers), the Food for Health Program (food access initiative), and FarmDrop Goes to School Program (school nutrition connections). Producers manage listings through the Producer Portal and keep 95% of sales. Additional features include a Meat Locker for custom-cut meat orders and regional Market Hubs serving different Maine communities. The platform supports Meat & Seafood, Breads & Bakery, Pantry, Beverages, Health & Wellness, and other product categories through a pre-paid harvest-to-order model.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Food for Health: A program launched in 2025 that purchases surplus food from local farms and distributes it to food security organizations, supporting both farm viability and food access.
Products and services
- FarmDrop Marketplace Core online farmers market platform connecting Maine farms directly with households through pre-paid harvest-to-order purchasing, supporting 25 pickup locations across Maine.
- Food for Health Program Food access initiative that purchases surplus food from local farms and distributes it to food security organizations, supporting both farm viability and community food access.
- FarmDrop Goes to School Program Program connecting Maine school nutrition programs with local farmers through FarmDrop's ordering platform, helping schools access fresh local food for school meals.
- Producer Portal Platform interface for Maine farms and food producers to manage product listings, set their own prices, and view incoming orders; producers retain 95% of sales revenue.
Quantifiable outcome
- Over 1,000 customers served across Maine, with 65+ farms selling through the platform (2025)
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use FarmDrop
Customer profileNamed customers11 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles6 records
FarmDrop technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed No
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration3 records
AI capability5 records
Feature3 records
FarmDrop partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
13 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- George Stevens Academy (GSA)coreCo-hosted World Food Day celebration on October 16, 2025, at GSA's newly renovated cafeteria in Blue Hill. The event featured a local food fair, community meal, and educational activities. GSA's Culinary Arts Program uses FarmDrop-sourced local ingredients.
- Healthy AcadiacoreFarmDrop works with Healthy Acadia's gleaning program alongside Food for Health distribution. Gleaning coordinates food rescue from farms and complements Food for Health's surplus purchasing model. Healthy Acadia is a public health organization serving Hancock and Washington Counties.
- Maine Department of EducationcoreFarmDrop is partnering with Maine's Department of Education to replicate its Downeast distribution model across other regions, supporting school nutrition programs in sourcing local food. This supports the FarmDrop Goes to School initiative.
- Maine Department of Health Public Health OfficescoreFarmDrop is partnering with Maine's Public Health Offices to expand its food access model across regions, integrating Food for Health programming with public health infrastructure.
- Organizations in Panama and MexicominorInternational organizations collaborating with FarmDrop to develop similar farmer networks and online marketplaces to better support collaboration between small-scale producers and their communities. Representatives joined World Food Day 2025 virtually.
- Sustainable Harvest InternationalminorFounder Florence Reed connected FarmDrop CEO Hannah Semler with Nick Sohn, leading to collaboration on software as a community food web weaving tool. This partnership contributed to conference presentations on food systems technology.
- Healthy Island ProjectcoreHealthy Island Project has managed the Deer Isle FarmDrop pickup site since 2021. Through Food for Health, the partnership expanded into a formal sourcing relationship for their Meals and Pantry Distribution programs. The organization also serves as a fiscal sponsor for Food for Health, enabling tax-deductible donations to the program.
- Friendship CottagecoreSenior day center in Blue Hill receiving weekly deliveries of local produce through Food for Health. FarmDrop delivers $50 product boxes weekly, coordinated with staff to ensure products match the needs of senior diners.
- Conscious CafecoreA FarmDrop vendor in Ellsworth that hosts free community meals every Wednesday. Through Food for Health, FarmDrop supplies Conscious Cafe with squash, potatoes, mushrooms, and onions for their community meals, including a special Christmas meal.
- Simmering Pot (Blue Hill Congregational Church)minorCommunity meal program at Blue Hill Congregational Church that partnered with FarmDrop for World Food Day food prep volunteer opportunities, including tomato sauce making and tamale preparation.
- Brooklin General StoreminorCommunity store acting as a FarmDrop pickup location. Purchased 100 pounds of potatoes through FarmDrop, with $60 of the purchase price donated to support additional food donations to a neighboring food security organization.
- Healthy Peninsula (Magic Food Bus)minorHealthy Peninsula's Magic Food Bus program was an early example of FarmDrop's community food web approach, efficiently sourcing products from multiple farms through the platform for distribution to community members.
- StripecorePayment processing platform used by FarmDrop for all transactions. Stripe processes payments including purchase totals and billing information. FarmDrop's privacy policy references Stripe's privacy policy for data handling.
Scale indicators11 records
Recent moves8 records
Expansion highlights6 records
FarmDrop competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Barn2Door: Barn2Door is a software-as-a-service platform that enables farmers to launch and manage online stores for direct-to-consumer sales, including subscriptions and pre-orders. It is the most direct functional competitor to FarmDrop's marketplace model, targeting the same small-farm customer base with similar e-commerce tooling.
- Corbin Hill Food Project: Corbin Hill Food Project is a mission-driven food enterprise sourcing from small and minority farmers in the Northeast to supply food access programs. It is directly comparable to FarmDrop's Food for Health work in combining farm income support with food security distribution.
- GrownBy: GrownBy is a farm-to-consumer e-commerce platform built by and for CSA farmers, supporting online sales, member management, and SNAP/EBT integration. It overlaps with FarmDrop on direct-to-consumer local food sales with food access features and is a peer in the mission-driven farm platform space.
- Farm Fresh To You: Farm Fresh To You delivers produce and local farm goods directly to consumer homes, primarily in California, via subscription boxes. It shares FarmDrop's farm-to-doorstep model and producer-direct ethos, though at much larger scale and with its own-farm production emphasis.
- Market Wagon: Market Wagon operates an online farmers market platform aggregating local producers and delivering to customers across multiple U.S. states. It competes head-to-head with FarmDrop's harvest-to-order, multi-farm aggregation model, but at significantly larger geographic scale.
- Food4All: Food4All provides an online marketplace and farm management tools that help small farms sell directly to consumers and wholesale buyers. It is closely comparable to FarmDrop in serving the small-farm direct-sales niche with multi-farm aggregation and pickup/delivery coordination.
Emerging players
- Misfits Market: Misfits Market is an online grocer delivering surplus and value-priced produce, proteins, and pantry items directly to consumers. It is an emerging adjacent player in the alternative food distribution space that overlaps thematically with FarmDrop's mission to improve food access and reduce waste.
- Imperfect Foods: Imperfect Foods is a direct-to-consumer subscription service delivering surplus and 'imperfect' produce to reduce food waste. It overlaps with FarmDrop's Food for Health surplus-purchasing mission and its direct-to-consumer local food distribution, though at national scale and without FarmDrop's producer-set pricing model.
Broad incumbents
- Local Food Hub: Local Food Hub is a nonprofit food hub aggregating and distributing Virginia-region farm products to consumers, schools, and institutions. It is comparable to FarmDrop in its multi-farm aggregation, food access mission, and institutional partnerships, but operates as a broader regional incumbent with deeper institutional contracts.
- Good Eggs: Good Eggs operates an online marketplace delivering local and sustainable groceries from regional producers to consumer homes. It is comparable to FarmDrop as a curated local food marketplace but serves a broader grocery basket and operates at much larger urban scale.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
FarmDrop social profiles
Digital presenceFarmDrop financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
FarmDrop leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
FarmDrop funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
FarmDrop M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about FarmDrop
What does FarmDrop do?
FarmDrop operates a custom-built online farmers market platform that connects over 65 Maine farms and food producers directly with households, schools, restaurants, and food security organizations across 25 pickup locations in four Maine regions. Customers place pre-paid harvest-to-order purchases through the marketplace, and producers fulfill orders for scheduled contactless pickup at community hub locations. The platform charges producers a 5% transaction fee on sales and reinvests a share of revenue into the Food for Health food access program.
Is FarmDrop a public or private company?
FarmDrop is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was FarmDrop founded?
FarmDrop was founded in 2011. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is FarmDrop based?
FarmDrop is headquartered in Cape Elizabeth, United States, in the North America region.
How does FarmDrop make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Marketplace Transaction Fee is the primary driver. The others are pickup / Fulfillment Fee and sales Reinvestment into Food for Health.
Who are FarmDrop's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Barn2Door, Corbin Hill Food Project, GrownBy, Farm Fresh To You, Market Wagon and Food4All. Emerging players are Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods. Broad incumbents are Local Food Hub and Good Eggs.
Does FarmDrop have an API?
No public API is recorded for FarmDrop.
What industry is FarmDrop in?
FarmDrop's product category is Online Farmers Market. Its primary akta.pro industry code is CRAHAHAE, Farmers’ Markets & Farm Stands (Fresh Food), with a secondary code of AFABAJAN, Grain Handling & Farmgate Services (Retailer/Co-op Adjacent). Its NAICS code is 115115 and its SIC code is 700.