Ever had a peach, apple or lemon tree go bananas with a bumper crop and not know what to do with it? Or maybe you’ve seen your neighbours’ trees overloaded, left to the birds, falling to the floor and going to waste? We have too, and that’s why we started RipeNearMe: a web app that connects people through the food we each grow ourselves.
Adding your produce
We allow anyone to post food that they grow themselves, or post produce growing in public space. It’s free to add as many different food as you grow, and you decide whether to swap, sell or giveaway your spoils.
Foraging online
Everyone’s produce gets pinned on our searchable, global map for some seriously addictive online foraging! It’s all about community and ultra-local food, mapped across the globe. You can find what’s growing in your neighbourhood to get in touch with folks nearby, or see what’s growing on half way around the world.
Growing and Ripe
Every produce listing has one of two statuses:growing or ripe. These satatutes allow a forager to know when produce is available (ripe) or not (growing). You’ll notice the red and green symbols for these throughout the site.
Subscriptions
Whether ripe or growing, you can subscribe to any produce listing with one click. This will save the item to your Subscriptions page, and you’ll receive email notifications when the grower marks the produce as ripe or posts a comment or update.
Fresh food everywhere
100 years ago, almost everyone grew some food. Fresh fruit and vegetables were ubiquitous and travelled just a few yards from plant to plate. We want to see fresh food everywhere again, and to encourage that there is no veggie patch or fruit tree too small to be Ripe Near Me. You might only have a few herbs on your balcony, or a mango tree in your front yard. It might not seem like much, but it’s worth sharing. Be proud! Be bold! Pin your crops to our map.
Our purpose
We imagine an edible urban landscape, overflowing with food for all. What keeps us up at night is a feeling that we have an opportunity to really shake up the food system, and put food back in the hands of people. If we encourage and incentivize people to grow food we can have an entirely different (edible) urban landscape. One where you get to pick fruit and veg off the plant - not a shelf! And where your fresh food comes from a micro-farm, window garden, or fruit tree in your neighbour’s backyards.
Who's using RipeNearMe?
"I really do love this idea. Ripe Near Me solves the age-old gardener's problem of having too much good stuff to handle when the garden is really producing, and the eater's problem of "where can I find good, ripe, fresh food?" "
Jennifer Cockrall-King
Author of Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution
"We gave boxes away to friends and family. With RipeNearMe we can share with community and find other people doing the same thing. Its bringing us together in the best possible way and we are excited to see more people using it."
Xantho Hatzimihail
Home Gardener
"The impact this tool will have on the global local movement will be out of this world. The amount of support this project is getting is growing everyday because this is something the world needed. It will change our lives!"
Daniel Lage
Transition Randwick
"RipeNearMe is a fabulous concept. It works, connects like-minded people and is most effective for sharing surplus produce. It is wonderful that the sustainable food movement has a chance to expand via the internet."
Cherilyn Phair
Home Gardener
We need your help
We are brand new, and since we only list produce grown by people like you, there may not be much available in your area yet. We need your help to: