entrepreneurs

DAWN Launches Rural Worker Cooperatives Assistance Program | Democracy at Work Network

I do think that one of the emerging trends that is coming to community food system work – especially markets – will be worker cooperatives. Take advantage of the excellent peer work that DAWN offers to learn more about this and to assist rural farmers and producers in your area.

DAWN Launches Rural Worker Cooperatives Assistance Program | Democracy at Work Network.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Kits for shoppers

In the arc in the maturation of a market shopper, it is clear that one type of shopper quickly adopts the grower mentality and begins to supplement their purchases with items they grow themselves, often with advice from the market vendors they buy from. A savvy market would do well to capitalize on that thirst for knowledge with products that allow backyard growing or canning or preserving. One of my favorite examples (although not a market vendor!) is the oyster starter kit that Taylor’s Seafood sells out of their store front in Puget Sound. Designed for people with waterfront property, it teaches these folks to harvest a small amount and offers basic understanding to those with this valuable real estate of the need for a balanced ecosystem.
This mushroom kit is a great idea and versions of it should be available in markets across the US. Another example might be a box of slightly damaged fruit with ingredients and instructions for making a pie, or culled tomatoes with small bunches of herbs and instructions for sauce.
We spend a great deal of time attracting new shoppers to our markets, but need to take the time to keep the longtime ones too.

Our Story – Back to the Roots | Mushroom Kit – Yields up to 1 1/2 lbs in 10 Days.

1 CommentLeave a comment

New campus HQ OK’d for Nicholls culinary school

Believe it or not, my food obsessed city of New Orleans is NOT the home of a dozen first-rate culinary schools; well, actually zero would be the number that we currently have. There has long been talk of Johnson and Wales putting a school in the NOLa area, but this program and school in a new campus headquarters along the Mississippi River Delta of Louisiana (about 50 miles outside of New Orleans) appeals to me more.
Chef John Folse has been extremely dedicated in building this program and his deep commitment to finding homegrown food professionals is commendable, as has been his long time support of the region’s farmers markets. On top of that, he has the encyclopedia on Cajun and Creole cuisine, a highly regarded reference book: Folse Encyclopedia and his cheese making operation is also excellent and one of the few artisanal cheese operations at this level in our state: Bittersweet Plantation

So, to wrap up, a good guy who has done as much as he can to build food systems in his home state. More like him are always welcome.

New campus HQ OK'd for Nicholls culinary school.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

How Veggie Co-ops and Ice Cream Collaboratives Could Save the Economy | Mother Jones

This entrepreneur throws some great numbers out in this excellent blog post and also entices us all with visions of local ice cream and veggies at what he, very interestingly calls a winter food bazaar. That typology term may fit in quite nicely to the project that we call Market CITY (Characteristics, Indicators and Typology)
His reference to Civic Economics and Ken Meter’s work is not surprising, since their reports (along with Michael Shuman at BALLE and Jeffrey O’Hara at Union of Concerned Scientists) make up much of the data that we are using to build the economic argument for local food systems.

How Veggie Co-ops and Ice Cream Collaboratives Could Save the Economy | Mother Jones.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Chicago Outdoor Produce Stands Serving Underserved Areas Approved By City Council

Hopefully, many of you are planning on heading to the Midwest for the PPS September International Public Market Conference on September 21-23, 2012. If you do, it might be worth an extra few days to drive or take the train to Chicago and see their growing local food presence. Every time I go, I find another sustainable project or food system piece to check out. It certainly has to do with the current federal administration’s own interest (and connection to the new mayor) in their home city, and probably also has to do with the last mayor’s interest in greening the city; Daley was the one who put the rooftop garden on city hall after all.

The cart approach that Mayor Emmanuel is offering in the press release attached here has its supporters and detractors. I, for one think before we use these less balanced fixes to try to address food insecurity and sovereignty issues, the farmers market movement needs to be better at knowing how to identify the types of markets that work in these different situations. Or, at least, make sure that the powers that be have farmers needs in mind and have time to build food producers’ long range direct marketing plans. Those types of markets would be collected using the research that myself and others are working on: identifying characteristics, indicators to get typology of markets. My project, using the acronym Market CITY, will be bringing together researchers, practioners and stakeholders to start to build the typology framework. More on that later.
But, do start to plan your Midwestern fact-finding trip and I hope you can find time to seek out these regional farming initiatives when you travel.

Chicago Outdoor Produce Stands Serving Underserved Areas Approved By City Council.

2 CommentsLeave a comment

Another educational food production platform, if nothing else….

When I worked at marketumbrella.org, one of the many projects that I helped design and run was our White Boot Brigade, the roaming shrimper market for added seasonal seafood sales. Rouse’s Supermarkets was an early supporter of the WBB, and we genuinely enjoyed working with this Houma-based family company. Since they gamely took on being the main grocery store chain in our city (when Sav-A-Center decided that post-Katrina New Orleans wasn’t for them), I for one was very happy as I knew them and knew their stores. New Orleanians are VERY picky about their “markets” (as stores are often called) and yet, the Rouse family has mostly met their needs. As for buying locally, they do buy, they do support local entrepreneurs. Farmers have a harder time getting their produce in there, but value-added farmers market vendors seem to be doing well.
They just opened a store a few blocks from the flagship Saturday farmers market in downtown New Orleans, and I think it will help both the market and the store. That store is the subject of this excellent story on their new rooftop garden.

The only supermarket in downtown New Orleans is the first grocery in the country to develop an aeroponic urban farm on its roof.

What exactly is an aeroponic urban garden?

Think vertical instead of horizontal. The garden “towers” use water rather than soil, and allow plants to grow upward instead of outward. It was developed by a former Disney greenhouse manager, and is used at Disney properties, the Chicago O’Hare Airport Eco-Farm and on the Manhattan rooftop of Bell Book & Candle restaurant.

Rouse’s downtown

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Community Supported Enterprises

Just attended a very useful workshop on Community Supported Enterprises, a model for investments for local businesses.I’ll leave my questions to the end after I give you some details…
3 examples were profiled:
Claire’s Restaurant, Hardwick Vermont is a LLC (actually 2 LLCs) that has 3 groups involved: investors in the real estate group, owner/managers (3 people) and 50 subscribers/lenders.

The one owner raised money by knocking on doors and reaching out to her network, since she was the only long-time Vermonter among the (3) owners.
She found investors who invested in the real estate group which owns the lease (and subleases to the restaurant) and the equipment. Their investment is very long-term and they were told that at the beginning. If the restaurant fails, they can get someone to take over the new lease.
The subscribers/lenders gave 1000.00 each to the restaurant itself and get their money back in increments of 25.00 in 10 months of the year over 4 years at the restaurant. The subscribers can transfer ownership of their subscription and family can use the subscription. There is no cash out provision. Since the restaurant does not own the equipment, it does not have major debt.

The Community Store, Saranac Lake NY
Is a C-corporation and has a board of directors of 7 and 3 full-time staff. Issued stock at 100 each to NY residents, goal was to raise 500,000, which took 5 years to do.
Shares can be transferred to out of state holders after 9 months. Since there is no majority stockholder, there is little chance for formal financing.
They ended the offer with 750 investors, mostly by asking their early shareholders to host “share” parties where board members could sell stock. Did constant events to keep their name and idea in front of people throughout the 5 years. Got the last 42,000 because of an in-depth New York Times story on cover of Sunday edition.

Co-op Power
Massachusetts, Southern Vermont
Classic member cooperative, different levels of membership:
Standard: 975.00 over 2 years
Farmer: 750.00 over 2 years
Limited Resource: 500.00 over 2 years
Buying Group: 250.00 over 2 years
Green Worker: 50.00 plus 6 months of work at Co-op Power

They also raise money through project loans for specific projects:
Biodiesel Project: 500.00 min, 5 years, 650k raised
Energy Efficiency Project: 500.00 min, 2-5 %, 5 years, 90k raised.

Here are the questions that occurred to me:
So, why haven’t farmers markets taken this model to find their start up?

And why don’t we see more cooperatives at market management level?,’

And why not project loans among the shoppers and farmers for short-term projects to create merchandise or an earned income stream for the market or for a farmer?

http://www.clairesvt.com

http://www.community-store.org

http://www.cooppower.coop/

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Our Black Year

Amazing presentation and exhortation at the 2012 BALLE conference from author and activist Maggie Anderson, author of “Our Black Year” a year long experiment in buying only from black-owned businesses. Her presentation was inspiring, troubling, uplifting, poignant and above all, a challenge to us “localists” to get past concepts and really place our buying power in the arena of a true power shift.
I cheered, cried and nodded throughout thinking of my own city of New Orleans and the tragedy of the lost African-American owned businesses and leaders that I have seen disappear from downtown since my childhood. Since Hurricane Katrina, that loss has been accelerated tremendously.
I heard her and committed to picking up the challenge in my own life, within the farmers market movement and on my neighborhood corridors.
Please read and listen to her amazing story and ideas so you can fashion your own plan to reduce African-American unemployment by shopping at and encouraging the number one employer of African-Americans – African-American owned businesses.

http://eefortomorrow.com/EE_Book.html

0 CommentsLeave a comment