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Overview

VISION

Wallace Center at Winrock International serves the growing community of civic, business, and philanthropic organizations involved in building a new good food system in the United States. In particular, the Center is focused on advancing regional, collaborative efforts to move good food – healthy, green, fair, affordable food – beyond the direct-marketing realm into larger scale markets so that more producers benefit, more communities have viable economies and greater access to good food,  and a greater number of acres are managed through sustainable practices.

To accomplish this, the Wallace Center has established a National Good Food Network that:

  • Serves as a networking, communications, and information hub, providing practical knowledge, learning models, and valuable connections for the broad range of groups, both for-profit and non-profit, involved in building a new good food system, and
  • Stimulates development of important, on-the-ground nodes of regional work by investing in groups and collaborative efforts engaged in scaling up aggregation and sales of good food to more substantial wholesale channels.

 
OBJECTIVES

  • Connection - foster regional initiatives that will bring increased good food into conventional food systems in a way that will ultimately improve good food access for all communities.
  • Knowledge - to assemble and connect value chain models and best practices, value chain experts, and opportunities for regional funding in the marketplace with regional network participants.
  • Community - to enable network participants to think beyond the commercial transaction of good food and to become participants in initiatives that will improve good food access to all communities.


ACTIVITIES

Launch: The National Good Food Network launched successfully in December 2007, in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a “Meet the Midwest Buyers” gathering and reception at the Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo. Nearly 100 food buyers, growers, and industry representatives attended the value chain gathering. This approach catalyzed new relationships and planted the seeds for new value chains.

The Wallace Center’s regional team continues to work in the region through “grower readiness” training to prepare more farms for participation in value chains. A growing number of commercial food service and retail companies are engaged with the network to identify supply, establish buying programs, and create relationships and establish regional value chains.

Regional Lead Teams and Advisory Council: In August 2008, the National Good Food Network announced the selection of its first round of Regional Lead Teams (RLTs), eight value chain leaders from around the country, chosen through a competitive RFP process. Each multi-organization team is working with the Wallace Center to develop regional networks of nonprofits, businesses, government and philanthropy collaborating to share innovative models, offer a central focal point to good food participants in the region, and expand the field of those engaged in the good food system. An Advisory Council of value chain practitioners and experts from around the country has also been selected to develop and guide the Network vision. Each RLT is represented on the Council.

Two additional RLTs have been formed in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Kansas City, Kansas. They are focused on developing and implementing models of aggregation and marketing of good food to large distributors – with an eye toward maintaining freshness and quality.  These pilots have prioritized fair pricing and telling the stories of individual growers—so that values embraced by the producers travel along with the food.

Learn more about the Regional Lead Teams and the Advisory Council.

Regional Value Chain Pilot Programs: The Wallace Center and the NGFN are working closely with a national food distributor to  develop a value chain model for aggregating and supplying regionally sourced food grown by family farms.  The initial phase included pilot programs in Kansas City and Grand Rapids, and a second phase in 2009 will expand the work into the Chicago region.

National Convening: In November 2008, the National Good Food Network hosted National Convening in
Chicago, Illinois, bringing together RLTs, an Advisory Council of value chain practitioners and experts, and 150 producers, buyers, aggregators, distributors, funders and professionals working in food access and policy. Over two days, the Network came together to teach, learn, and build capacity to move more good food to more people. Learn more about the 2008 National Convening.

Outreach and Technical Assistance: The Wallace Center will support networking and value chain development through communications, outreach, and technical assistance to business, non-profits and funders.

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