Alum’s Platform Brings the Farm Right to You
September 15, 2023
Erika Hang envisions a world where people understand the food they’re eating – where it comes from, who grows it, and how they can access it. A 2019 graduate of the USC Iovine and Young Academy with a Master of Science in Integrated Design, Business and Technology, Hang has had a longtime interest in farming and sustainable growing practices, and now she’s helping to bridge the gap between buyers and producers.
Hang is the founder of Sustaina, an online marketplace that develops software applications for farms, food producers, farmers’ markets, and agricultural producers to plan, manage, and sell direct to consumers. She’s seen first-hand just how these vital producers operate, from their farming techniques to their need for e-commerce tools that can help their businesses, well… grow.
“We originally created Sustaina to incentivize and organize landowners, workers, agricultural experts, and their communities to create sustainably-sourced local food through backyard farm cooperatives. We built software tools that would help plan, manage, and track the farms,” Hang explains.
In order to have real local meaning, farmers and community gardens can benefit from a digital platform that handles order generation, pick-up and delivery organization, and even accounting fulfillment. Sustaina provides just that, and the company’s latest milestone includes a partnership with SEE-LA (Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles), a non-profit that operates eight markets in the Los Angeles area. Sustaina built the organization a custom-branded website called eat!, allowing residents to order pick-up and delivery from these participating farmers’ market locations. Because before food goes from farm to table, it should get in the hands of consumers in the most efficient and affordable way available.
“For me…I want to feel connected to what I am eating and growing and things like that. And I want to be able to help other people access that kind of produce as well,” Hang remarks.
Hang notes that Sustaina is working on implementing SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Plan) EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) into the site in an effort to maximize reach and resources for those who can’t always access fresh food delivery.
“I think being able to work with organizations and nonprofits and farmers – that is really cool. I was really excited to work on something that has a big impact in the community,” she adds.
Community impact is key for Hang, who has spent the last four years immersing herself in the art of farming. As an IYA student working on her capstone project – a concept that matured into Sustaina – she and her partner Isaac Qureshi were introduced to the founder of Sierra Madre’s Huarache Farms Collective, Mike Wood. Huarache became their first pilot partner where she was able to get hands-on experience on the business of farming and witness the needs producers like Mike had in order to manage their sales and profit share with vendors.
“We were really inspired by how he is a backyard farmer, and he was trying to replicate a model of people growing in their yards. And I took that part of it, and we started to build my capstone project around that and trying to see what we could do to help optimize creating more backyard farms in LA,” Hang recalls.
Hang calls food education a personal passion, one she put her heart and soul into during her time at IYA. Partnering with Isaac, who had a background in engineering with a similar interest in farming, encouraged her to execute her ideas as they cropped up, so to speak.
“I was doing a lot of reading about food systems and where food comes, how far it travels, contamination in food with plastics, PFAs, and things like that … When I met Mike, he really was so transparent about what he was doing, and he had a lot of knowledge about the food system and what we can grow here that's adaptable to the climate and what's medicinal and things like that.”
Hang’s USC connection is strong, as she was working at the Annenberg School of Communication when she enrolled at IYA. It was there where she learned new design and engineering skills that got her to where she is today, in addition to jumping into real-life industry experiences where she found herself working with and presenting to major companies.
“We learned a lot about breaking things down and trying to create solutions that were helpful and not just a bandaid,” she says of the problem-solving process that helped her launch her business.
And for Hang, the impact of Sustaina is anything but a bandaid. When she imagines the next phases of the company she hopes it can affect how people sell, as well as buy. The future of food accessibility is literally at our fingertips.
“I think we really want it to be a tool that any farmer's market, farmer, or food producer can really use and build to what they need, and really provide tangible value to the people growing the food. And I also think that we can help change some habits of how people shop, wanting people to know that they have access to the farmer's market in an online way, as well as in a physical location, and just trying to help as many producers as possible.”