The best sites to discover and buy local: the comparison

Eating and shopping local has never been easier: in a few years, dozens of platforms have sprung up to connect producers, craftspeople and neighbourhood shops with people who want their purchases to mean something. But each one covers a different need. Here's a clear guide to the best sites for discovering local and regional products — and the piece they almost all leave out.

Why go through a local-products platform?

These sites do one valuable thing: they shorten the distance between the person who produces and the person who buys. You find what's near you, you know where it comes from, and a much larger share of your money stays in the local economy. The catch is that no single platform does everything — some are built for farm food, others for crafts, others simply to map what exists. Knowing who does what saves you a lot of time.

Open Food Network — short-chain farm food online

An open-source, non-profit platform that lets farmers and food producers open an online shop and sell at a price that works for them. Communities use it to build virtual farmers' markets, bringing nearby producers together in one place. Well established in the UK and beyond, it's a transparent way to order veg, dairy and meat from named producers rather than from an anonymous warehouse.

CrowdFarming — direct from European farms

Europe's leading direct-to-consumer platform. You buy fruit, vegetables, olive oil or honey straight from a named farm — and can even "adopt a tree" and receive its harvest through the year. It ships across some thirty countries, so it's a good fit whether you're in the UK, Ireland or mainland Europe, with a real connection to the grower behind every box.

Neighbourfood & local click-and-collect

Neighbourfood runs online farmers' markets on a click-and-collect logic: you order from a group of local producers during the week and pick everything up at one nearby location. Producers keep the lion's share of the price, and you get the convenience of online ordering with the freshness of a market stall.

Local directories: Big Barn, LocalHarvest and more

To simply find what's near you, directories do the job. In the UK, Big Barn maps thousands of outlets selling fresh local food and drink. In the US, LocalHarvest lists tens of thousands of family farms, markets and CSAs, and the USDA local food directories add thousands more. They're the fastest way to find a real outlet a few streets away rather than a parcel from afar.

The missing link: proximity businesses

Notice the gap? All these platforms are built around products you can ship — mostly food. They leave out a whole category: the restaurant on the corner, the hairdresser, the wine bar, the independent bookshop, the family hotel. These businesses don't sell a parcel; they offer a local experience, and most of them are poorly listed online — no site, no shareable link, nothing to pass on when a happy customer wants to recommend them.

That's exactly where SmartShopAgent fits. In five minutes, any local business gets a free, clear web page with its key details (address, opening hours, tap-to-call number, photos) and a QR code for the counter or window. No technical skills, no subscription. For the customer, it finally turns a vague "you should go there" into a real link to share — the way recommendation is supposed to work. It's the natural complement to the food platforms above: buying local isn't only about food, and a good address deserves to be found and reviewed.

How to choose — and combine — these platforms

• For your weekly food shop: a short-chain platform (Open Food Network, CrowdFarming, Neighbourfood) or your local market.
• For a gift or a regional speciality: a "made-local" label or a regional makers' directory.
• To find and recommend a shop, restaurant or craftsperson near you: a proximity directory like SmartShopAgent, and share the good deals you spot.

The best approach is rarely a single site — it's pairing a national platform with a local search, and passing on what you love.