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Location: Distribution Projects
Discussion: Baldwin Local Food Project - History
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hbusse |
Baldwin Local Food Project - History
Jul 10 2008, 11:35 AM EDT
PROJECT HISTORYOver the past couple years, staff at the Agricultural Innovation Center (AIC), Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) and others have been fielding calls from distributors, retailers and larger food industry players interested in procuring local foods. While their interest is promising and reflects growing consumer demand for such foods, their calls prompted the realization that the supply and infrastructure for such a “scaling-up” of regional food production has its limitations and is unable to meet such a demand. Building a viable local and regional food distribution system provides small and mid-size farms with an opportunity for a sustainable livelihood and build thriving community-based economies. Existing local food projects, however, have tended to focus on niche markets and localized efforts. We hope this project will address increasing affordable local food access to more mainstream markets, while maintaining the values and transparency of direct farmer-consumer relationships. PROJECT GOALS In order to create the necessary infrastructure, we will work with farmers interested in supplying a wholesale market to develop the organizational and business capacity to meet the high-volume demand of distributors. With our combined resources at CIAS and AIC, we see our strengths being farmer-directed research and business planning/outreach. Our primary objectives are: Objective 1: Strengthen relationships and improve transparency among all sectors of the food supply chain. Objective 2: Support the development of locally-owned food entrepreneur businesses Project Contacts: Anne Pfeiffer, Agricultural Innovation Center anne.pfeiffer@ces.uwex.edu Michelle Miller, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems Email: mmmille6@wisc.edu Heidi Busse, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems hbusse@wisc.edu Do you find this valuable?
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hbusse |
1. RE: Baldwin Local Food Project - History
Jul 10 2008, 11:43 AM EDT
Alright - Knowing that so many of you work on complimentary projects and have more “on the ground” experience with issues related to distribution/aggregation, we wanted to post updates on our work with the Baldwin Endowment Local Food Projects to seek your opinions and make our work responsive to true community needs. The goal of the Baldwin Project is to facilitate the development of a regional distribution system that enables Wisconsin producers to move their products through high-volume markets. We are currently working to determine what links of the supply chain have the greatest potential for scaling up local foods and where our energy/efforts will have most impact. To that end, we are working in the following areas: 1. Evaluate national case studies of successful food entrepreneurs in order to learn best practices and identify common themes as to why they were successful. The case studies are exploring different links of the supply chain and regional variation. 2. Identify key members throughout the supply chain system in Wisconsin and share learnings/best practices with them, getting their feedback and direction. 3. In partnership with other organizations and networks, apply findings to a pilot project to try to work through the obstacles and achieve some of the scaling up goals of the grant. We write seeking your feedback – are we on target with our work? What kinds of questions to you have about distribution and aggregation of product? What are the obstacles to increasing local foods 1) access and 2) affordability? We hope we can use technology to exchange ideas and momentum, and as a way to engage a broader community in our research efforts. So please do let us know where you see the needs being and ideas you have for collaboration. Thanks! 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
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PauletteFlynn |
2. RE: Baldwin Local Food Project - History
Jul 18 2008, 12:45 PM EDT
I am so glad you are working on this! I buy food for the SHARE program, about $2.5 million annually. I would like to include more locally produced food, but find it almost impossible to find a source of supply that can meet our specs. When we have made a good local relationship the process has been very time consuming. What we need is product that is wholesale priced, graded, sized and packed in a consistent count. Depending on what the item is we need 5,000-10,000 units of the product, sometimes more. Delivery must be timed to coincide with our monthly distribution cycle. A good example of a relationship that works is with a squash farmer near Sullivan. They do a great job of getting the product to us as specified. We have worked together at times to bring product into our warehouse early to avoid a freeze. We recycle the cartons back to them to keep their packing costs down. They responded to a spike in sales and were able to increase the order without much notice. It is a very win/win experience. We have worked with them for several years now, so they consult with us before they plant and we agree to buy the squash, based on projections. I would like to find a cabbage grower that would like to try this. Paulette Flynn pflynn@sharewi.org Do you find this valuable? |
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hbusse |
3. RE: Baldwin Local Food Project - History
Aug 7 2008, 3:44 PM EDT
Thanks for posting, Paulette! I wanted to follow-up on your inquiry about cabbage - were any of the contacts that we sent your way helpful? If you are still seeking this product, let me know if I or others can help. Best, heidi
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