Clearing the Roadblocks: Market Based Strategies for Getting Good Food to All Communities

July 21, 2011

Description

It's an age-old conundrum:
How do you supply all communities with Good Food - healthy, fair, affordable and green - while simultaneously ensuring that your food business will itself be sustainable?

The Wallace Center, as administrator of the Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development (HUFED) Center, has a broad, national perspective on the most innovative market based food access work in the country.

In this webinar, we explore three of the most promising strategies and their business models for clearing away common barriers to increasing access to fresh, healthy, regionally sourced food. Learn how mobile markets, food hubs and processing / cold chain facilities each have a crucial role in easing bottlenecks to widespread Good Food.

Taking each model in turn, we describe the model from a national perspective, including the essential features, some of the challenges and opportunities of the model, and point you to several programs using the model. Then an innovative organization doing cutting edge work will dive deep into the details of their project to illustrate one way that theory translates into practice. Each presenter is a recipient of a Wallace HUFED grant.

Recording

Slides

Download the slides from this presentation (PDF)

Guest Presenter Bios

Jeffrey Randol - Farm to Family Naturally

A graduate of UMKC, Jeff has over 35 years of experience in business and community development.  He has served as President of the New York State Economic Development Council; Director of the New York Business Development Corporation; President of the Saratoga Economic Development Corporation; and Chairman/CEO of Voice Verified.

While actively involved in NYS economic development efforts, he was instrumental in the financing of over $600 million in industrial, commercial and technology projects that resulted in the creation of thousands of new jobs.  In addition to his economic and community development efforts, Jeff has been actively engaged in a variety of business and real estate initiatives.  He helped pioneer factory outlet shopping centers with the Chelsea Group; voice biometrics with Voice Verified; and a variety of real estate ventures that included senior housing, commercial office parks, shopping centers and industrial complexes.

Currently his focus is on the development of urban food hubs that support the aggregation, processing and distribution of locally produced foods. His business model aims to meet the demands for affordably priced, fresh and locally made foods by consumer, commercial and institutional purchasers, and, to help rural farmers efficiently reach large urban market channels.  Jeff is a principal in Cornerstone Ventures, which helps to create sustainable social enterprises; Impact Funders, which invests in and manages food hub related enterprises;  and Farm to Family Naturally, an aggregation and distribution business based in St. Louis, MO.

Rebecca Singer - Center for Innovative Food Technology

Rebecca A. Singer, vice president and director of Agricultural Program, Center for Innovative Food Technology (CIFT), identifies advanced agricultural practices and implements demonstration projects to enhance emerging agricultural and agribusiness sectors. In addition, she manages projects relating to small business development, value-added agriculture and alternative energy. Prior to joining CIFT in 2001, she worked with the Ohio Department of Agriculture as the OHIO PROUD coordinator.

A graduate of the Ohio Leadership Education and Development program, Singer participated in tours of various statewide agricultural businesses and received exposure to international agribusiness. In 2006, she traveled to Israel at the invitation of the Negev Foundation, touring various agricultural and food technology facilities. In addition, Singer was a recipient of the 2007 Young Professional Achievement Award given by The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Alumni Society. It was at Ohio State where she earned her bachelor’s degree in agribusiness and applied economics.

She remains active in organizations across northwest Ohio, including her membership with the American and Ohio Agri-Women Association, advisor for the Green Acres 4-H club, and county judge on numerous 4-H and leadership projects.

Diane Wilson - Peta Wakan Tipi / Dream of Wild Health

Diane Wilson (Dakota) is the Director of Dream of Wild Health, a Native-directed 10-acre organic farm in Hugo, MN. Dream of Wild Health is currently a program of a non-profit, Peta Wakan Tipi, but will soon achieve its independent non-profit status. Wilson is a Master Gardener with 20 years of non-profit management experience. Wilson is active in the Native community and has participated in Dakota Commemorative Marches from 2002-2010. Wilson is also the author of two books dealing with Native identity, trauma, and cultural recovery.