Any kind of new business, venture, cause, or movement eventually asks, “How do operate our solution at scale?” In other words, When new orders increase by a factor of 10, then 100, then 1,000, etc., how do we maintain our delivery promise, our ability to look and feel like we did when we were small and fresh?

Naomi Starkman, founder and editor of @CivilEats (a great read), says that during the current COVID-19 crisis, “We have great potential to build local infrastructure, and to work across class and race and regions to build a more healthy and just sustainable food system.” I couldn’t agree more. More people shopping at farmers markets and direct-to-consumer websites; more people cooking at home, self-inspired or even from meal kits; people eating fresh and wholesome; farmers working free from the chains of the industrial food marketplace; agricultural workers paid fairly and treated more humanely—I’m all in.

It will be some time before we see a scale that will force us to ask, “Now what”?—after farmers market look again like the huge urban marketplaces of history and neo-Victory Gardens dot the urban and suburban and rural landscape…everywhere. Until that time, let’s collectively move ahead on all the fronts mentioned by Ms. Starkman and more, each in our own way, but let’s start now. And think about how we scale…later.