OrderLeaf grew directly out of real experiences running farms, managing wholesale accounts, and growing small businesses. Having spent years on the ground with producers, we know how easy it is for orders to get lost in a scattered mess of text messages, emails, and spreadsheets. We created OrderLeaf because we wanted a simpler way to keep track of it all.
Ariel spent seven years running Seed to Seed Farm, growing 15 acres of certified organic crops for wholesale buyers. He later became Director of Certification at Real Organic Project, where he worked directly with over 1,100 certified organic farms and made more than 300 in-person farm visits — building the program's applications, evaluation criteria, and farmer communication systems from the ground up. Ariel knows what it takes to keep a farm's relationships with its buyers organized, honest, and running smoothly.
Jessica has 17 years of hands-on experience growing crops and developing value-added products for farms of every size, from farmers' market stands to wholesale grocery accounts. She spent five years in department manager roles at Wegmans and five more at the Wegmans Organic Farm & Orchard, building a ground-level understanding of the food system from both sides of the counter. As Associate Director of Certification at Real Organic Project, she co-directed a program serving 1,100+ farmer members and conducted over 200 inspection visits. Jessica sits on the City of Meadville's Market House Authority Board and runs her own young farm in Northwest Pennsylvania.
Lauren grew up on her family's farm, where she first learned how tightly soil, animals, and people are connected and she's spent her career since figuring out how to bring that same care into the tools farmers use. She helped launch a small food hub supporting small-scale agriculture in Western Washington, and works as a Salesforce administrator specializing in data, automation, and building systems around real people instead of the other way around. Lauren built OrderLeaf because she believes small farms deserve better tools and a fairer food system starts with giving farmers back their time.
Ariel and Jessica built the same certification program from opposite ends of the country. Lauren built food systems tools from the other side of the industry. All three of us kept landing on the same problem — and decided to give farmers their time back.