Planet Food was born out of a meeting with farmers
A B.C. computer and tech entrepreneur has created a company to help streamline the journey food takes from the farm to the buyer.
“If you can think for a moment about what the internet did, it connected everyone around the world around one central network,” Aaron Veale told Farms.com. “I want to build an internet for local (food) supply. We have a lot of people doing really great things and no one is connecting them all together.”
This concept of food connectivity is the basis for Veale’s company Planet Food.
The desktop and mobile platform allow farmers with goods like fruits, vegetables, or proteins for sale to connect directly with buyers like restaurants or exporters. It can also support farmers who want to build their own brand.
Using Planet Food is like using other online marketplaces.
A farmer lists his or her product for the price they’d like to sell it at.
Planet Food supports the transaction by handling everything in between the buyer and seller.
This includes the pickup, delivery, and storage through a 15,000 square foot warehouse it recently acquired.
“If you go through one of the big players, you get a certain price and you take it or leave it,” Veale said. “This warehouse enables farmers to sell their food for the price they want to sell it for and let the market decide. Every restaurant I’ve gone to in Vancouver wants to buy local but hasn’t had the option which can scale local food.”
Veale has set a high benchmark for Planet Food once the warehouse is operating at full capacity.
“We’re going to be able to move 1 million pounds of food this year from local farms to restaurants,” he said. “I want to help keep farmers in business and prove that Canada is open for business and that we can move local food at scale.”
The idea for Planet Food came out of a chance 2025 weekend meeting Veale and his girlfriend attended with farmers.
At the time, he sold most of his stuff and was about a month away from moving to Houston to work on a tech startup.
Earlier in the week Veale had multiple tabs open on his laptop, and one started playing a story about a struggling B.C. blueberry farmer.
“The farmer was talking about how hard it is to sell his blueberries for at least what it costs (to grow them),” Veale said. “I Googled him and he was having a townhall meeting that weekend. Every weekend I take my girlfriend out for dinner, and I suggested we go to this meetup and learn about where our food comes from.”
Veale, whose father’s side comes from a three-generation farming family in Taber, Alta., and whose mother’s side grew food for the community in Thrums, B.C., recalls farmers and community members at the meeting openly sharing their experiences.
At this meeting he became aware of the serious challenges farmers face.
“We went to the barn, and there were around 100 farmers and a couple hundred community members,” he said. “It was tough hearing how farmers spend the entire year working only to get squeezed at the end. One farmer told me he hears about people going out of business every day, even suicides. Driving home, I remember thinking no one is going to help them, so I might as well.”
As a systems designer, Veale spent the next nine weeks mapping out the supply chain.
He found that prior attempts tried to solve small portions of the problem when they needed to be handled at a macro level.
This provided insight into where a proper solution can be a valuable tool for farmers and food buyers.
“I found that if we could get farmers better market access and distribution, we could probably get them a better price,” he said.