Jessica Merton from Food Club Hub

Tell us a little about yourself!

I’m Jessica Merton, founder of Food Club Hub. My journey into food networks started when working as a lawyer for BRAC in Bangladesh, the world’s largest Southern originated NGO built entirely on existing communities. BRAC taught me the power of collective action – how communities can uphold shared values, support one another, hold each other accountable and create meaningful change.

When my husband, Luke, and I moved to South Africa, he was making cheese for a large cheese-maker that bought in subsidised milk from the Netherlands. This was our first insight into the food system in South Africa. Milk is a seasonal product and the global north often has a summer surplus, which gets dumped here at artificially low prices — distorting the local market and undermining local dairy farmers.

So, a year later, we opened a small cheese shop in Cape Town. It was a space where Luke could support small-scale cheesemakers and connect them directly with buyers. It gave me a deep appreciation for the craft and care that goes into making real food – and a growing awareness of the relentless pressure producers face: the demand to cut costs, the squeeze from big retailers, and the vulnerability that comes from relying on centralised systems.

When the drought hit and our business (and many others) started to struggle — with a greedy landlord and restaurants demanding cheaper cheese —  I became even more aware of how fragile our food systems are, and the need for fairer, more resilient alternatives. That was the spark that led to Food Club Hub.

Tell us about the inspiration for the Food Club hubs

I did a permaculture design course with the idea of creating a different way to buy food — one where everyone in the system could benefit. I came across community food-buying groups in Europe (the Food Assembly, La Ruche Qui Dit Out, Open Food Network). 

In starting my club, I was lucky to be introduced to the Good Food Clubs in Cape Town. Liesl and Abi welcomed me in and gave me a much more nuanced understanding of the local food landscape. Liesl recommended An Empty Plate by Tracey Ledger — a book that crystallised for me the importance of putting farmers at the centre of the food system. Liesl has been an important mentor and is still fighting to grow a space for small producers to flourish (check out Mowbray Market!).

Andrew Ardington joined my food club. He was on his own journey back to farming and soon started RegenAg SA — helping farmers learn regenerative methods that restore carbon, nutrients, and water to the soil, while still making a living. But the challenge was clear: there was no proper market for this kind of food production. Regeneration takes time, requires meticulous planning and needs finance in the early years. Andrew convinced me to build an app that could help others do what we were doing — and connect farmers practising regenerative agriculture with conscious buyers. That’s how Food Club Hub was born. His work has shown me just how bleak the situation is for most farmers in South Africa – small & big, black & white - but also how human connection can spark hope, learning and possibility.

I'm inspired every day by both our Hosts - who are a truly special, motivated group of people who work so hard to think about food clubs and to change this system - and by our only employee, Jaime Cooper. She truly embodies what we are trying to do with food clubs every day in her every action and keeps us going.

Could you share one or two stories that capture the vision of the Food Club Hubs and the journey you’re on with others?

Most Hosts aren’t farmers or food producers. We’re just people who want to see farmers treated fairly, take responsibility in our families to reduce our footprint on our planet, and eat better food in our communities.

Because of the personal connection Hosts have with their members, we’re able to share real stories — and respond quickly. During lockdown, when supermarkets dominated the market, food clubs became lifelines for small producers. When a strike at the port stopped export-bound blueberries from leaving the country, our clubs sold five tonnes of blueberries in just five days — helping a farmer stay afloat.

When a caracal destroyed the pasture-raised chicken coop at Veldt Reared Farm, our Hosts were able to explain to members that this is part of the risk of farming outdoors, in nature.  - Members were grateful to tell their kids that there would be no chicken this month because the caracal ate them all. It became a real moment of connection as they were able to explain to their kids that the chicken they eat doesn't start and finish on a shelf like many others but grows healthy and strong outdoors, building soils within the ecosystem! 

This is why food clubs matter. We tell real, messy stories about farming in a way that an empty shelf in a supermarket never could. These stories connect us to the realities of our food and the people who dedicate their lives to producing it.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced and overcome in the network formation? What challenges persist?

There’s so much going on that it's hard to even know where to begin! One challenge is holding the balance — keeping things fair for farmers, Hosts, and members, while staying afloat. I still don’t pay myself a salary — though I’m hopeful that will change soon.

Technology has been both a blessing and a challenge – building a platform that can handle the complexity of these relationships, the growing demands to modernise the system, while keeping it affordable. Technology evolves rapidly yet is very expensive to change.

Another ongoing challenge is navigating the pressure to grow while staying true to our principles. I feel the urgency of the farming situation South Africa is currently faced with, it’s relentless. Climate Change, Covid, Ukraine, Tariffs – it never stops. However, scaling this business is not as easy as throwing on another production line. We simply don’t have the supply in many areas to support communities to buy in this way yet.

It’s also very tempting to cut corners to keep prices low, but that’s not why we started this. The aim is to build a fairer system, which doesn’t always mean a cheaper one.  And with this comes the biggest challenge – how do we reach out to more vulnerable communities who really need access to better quality food?

As you continue on your journey, what do you dream of for these and similar networks?

It would be wonderful to see these networks grow to the point where viable alternatives to the big, centralised industrial food system can thrive. Food Clubs on every corner. I daydream about a more resilient food system, where more farmers are compensated fairly to change their farming methods to more regenerative solutions.

Right now, these clubs mostly exist in relatively affluent, white communities. I’d love to see more communities gain control over their food choices — with producers and consumers working together across a broader demographic.

How have your dreams shifted over the many years of the food clubs?

Maybe it’s age, or maybe it’s the times we’re living in, but I’ve shifted from dreaming of revolution to believing in the power of small acts.

When it comes to working towards a more just, equitable and local food system, what are your big dreams and what small things are contributing to those?

The hardest but most important thing is in the everyday work of improving how we relate to each other — putting our hands up when we get things wrong, learning together, listening deeply, and resisting the temptation to rushing to make big claims (good or bad).

These are the small, steady shifts that matter. If Food Clubs can inspire better ideas, and even be a tiny thorn in the side of the industrial food system — then we’re doing something meaningful. As we’ve said so often that it’s become a bit of a by-line, we don’t have all the answers, but it’s a beautiful way to buy food.