KITCHENER — A pair of young entrepreneurs believe they are among the first in Canada to connect people with sources of local food using online shopping and home deliveries.

Patrick Valoppi and Niket Soni founded Grocera in February and now deliver fresh bread, meat, vegetables, fruit and snacks five days a week to customers around Waterloo Region.

They fill orders at Herrle's Country Farm Market, Sabletine Fine Pastries, Pure Organic Foods and the St. Jacobs Farmers' Market. They mark up the food and drive the orders to their customers.

"The orders are just coming to the point where we have to hire extra people to help because right now it is Patrick and myself," Soni said.

After graduating from the University of Waterloo with a degree in biomedical sciences, Soni worked for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, where he learned a lot about food safety and distribution. Soni saw what he calls a massive gap between consumers and sources of local food.

"Local food isn't easily accessible if you don't make time for it," Soni said.

He teamed up with Patrick Valoppi, who studied business at Wilfrid Laurier University. The pair obtained space for their startup in the Velocity Garage in downtown Kitchener.

"We decided to inject e-commerce into the local food industry," Soni said. "It is one of the last industries to catch onto online shopping."

In the U.S., a fast-growing company called Instacart takes online orders for groceries and makes deliveries within the hour. It gets its food from existing grocery stores. Whole Food Markets uses it for home delivery in many cities.

San Francisco-based Instacart is backed by some of the biggest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, but it has no equivalent in Canada.

"The online grocery delivery market in Canada is relatively untouched," Soni said.

Grocera's business model taps two trends — online shopping and diets based on local foods.

Shoppers go to the website, shop.grocera.ca, to place orders. They select a delivery time between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., Monday to Friday. Grocera also is active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

"Once an order comes in, we are notified immediately," Soni said. "We have a system in place where on the back end I assign orders, deliveries and pickups to one of our drivers."

Valoppi added that "the customer will actually receive a text message on their phone saying the driver is coming towards their house, and they can actually track their location through a GPS map."

Perishable foods are transported in coolers packed with ice and are closely monitored with temperature guns.

Herrle's Country Farm Market, which has sold fresh vegetables, fruit and baked goods from its market on Erbs Road near St. Agatha for more than 50 years, is partnering with Grocera. The Herrle family farms 650 acres and grows vegetables on about 250 acres of that land.

The relationship with Grocera is both convenient and cutting-edge, said Trevor Herrle-Braun, who oversees the operation of the popular market employing 50 people.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

"We don't have time for and we don't have the management for something like that," he said of online orders and home deliveries.

Throughout the growing season, Herrle-Braun stays in touch with Valoppi and Soni using BlackBerry Messenger. As different produce comes into season, he sends Grocera high-definition pictures and prices.

"And they can put it on their website right away," Herrle-Braun said.