Giving Berkshire Made and Grown Products a Wider Reach
By providing an efficient bridge between farms and food producers and the retailers and restaurants that carry their products, Nick Martinelli reckoned he could also build a business of his own.
If you’ve ever been surprised and delighted to find Berkshire products further afield from our county, you may have Nick Martinelli’s company, Marty’s Local, to thank. Martinelli was inspired to start his local distribution company nine years ago, after completing a yearlong agriculture program at The Farm School in Orange, MA. He had been working as an attorney for then-Governor Deval Patrick but was motivated to learn more about agriculture.
“When I came out of that program, I was talking to growers and makers in this area and wanted to participate in the agricultural economy,” Martinelli says. He learned that most farmers handled deliveries on the fringes of their days—early in the morning, or when the farm work was complete at the end of the day. “If they could assign those distribution costs to me, the real opportunity was for them to grow sales,” he says. “The idea was to professionalize the supply chain.” By providing an efficient bridge between farms and food producers and the retailers and restaurants that carry their products, he reckoned he could also build a business of his own.
In the fall of 2015, Marty’s Local was launched. Martinelli signed on his first few clients, and then quickly added more, including Markristo Farm in Hillsdale, High Lawn Farm, No. Six Depot Roastery, BOLA Granola, Cricket Creek, and Ioka Valley Farm. Williams College, Guido’s, Berkshire Food Co-op, and Wild Oats were among his first retailers. Now, Marty’s Local works with more than 100 vendors, has 25 employees, and covers territory that extends a bit past Worcester and into Boston, through Central Massachusetts and the hill towns, Southern Vermont, and the Hudson Valley. The company also delivers local goods to Berkshire Farms Market at two Logan Airport terminals.
“Nick is a pioneer and a true believer in the local scene,” says Michele Miller, founder of BOLA Granola. “We are grateful he has championed BOLA Granola and introduced us to another local star—the Big Y family of stores.” Since signing on with Marty’s, BOLA has increased distribution to 70 Big Y stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut. “That was very exciting for us,” says Martinelli, who concedes that not all his partners want to scale in that way.
Martinelli says his key to success is constant communication on both the vendor and retail sides of his business. “We have a small customer support team working every day not only to keep up with what’s available but to find new customers for them,” he says. Larger distributors, he says, rarely have the bandwidth to provide that kind of personal service.
In 2019, Martinelli acquired another distributor—Squash, Inc. in Belchertown—and added more institutional clients, such as public schools and colleges in the Berkshires and the Pioneer Valley. That means more fresh, local food in school cafeterias. Originally situated in Richmond and then Pittsfield, Martinelli moved the business to South Deerfield in 2021. It’s a more central location that allows easier access to the company’s broad distribution area. “We’re growing every year,” says Martinelli. That’s good news for him, but also for the farmers and food producers who are eager to grow as well.
