Economic Growth United States Project #12079

NGFN Webinars: Sustainable US Food System Models

Project Report | Oct 24, 2013
National Food Hub Conference

By Erin Lingo | Intern

We are so excited to announce the upcoming 2014 National Food Hub Conference: March 26-28 in Raleigh, NC! The theme for this year’s conference is “Building Capacity for Healthy Regional Food Systems” and will be a landmark event for food hub managers and staff, technical assistance providers, government and nonprofit support organizations, and agricultural producers. The conference will feature:

Multiple tracks for food hub managers and staff
Networking and learning for support organizations, consultants and agencies
"Ask an Expert": slots of one-on-one time to dig deep with various technical assistance experts
Food hub and food business tours
Opportunities to learn from your peers, network, and feel a part of an incredibly energetic community
Excellent local food from Eastern Carolina Organics, Firsthand Foods, and other local suppliers.

Registration opens in November. For more information, visit us at: http://ngfn.org/hubs2014

Coming up:

Tools for Improving Farmer Financial Skills – November 21 – Register now!
Farming is a business, but many farmers are not armed with all of the tools to manage their farm finances. Farmer trainers now have a new resource in their arsenal - a curated collection of tools to address this critical issue, and people to help them incorporate them into their curricula. Join us for an introduction to the tool library, and several of the tools.

Food Banks as Regional "Good Food" Partners – December 12 – Register now!
Food banks have tremendous infrastructure, and a commitment to feeding people nutritious food. Several food banks across the country are leveraging their resources to support local/regional food systems in innovative ways. Join us for some holiday-time inspiration.

And from the archives:

FSMA Comments for Food Hubs - an NGFN Food Hub Collaboration webinar – view the recording
Almost all food hubs are subject to new oversight under the FDA's proposed food safety regulations. These regulations ARE ABLE TO BE CHANGED to better fit your operations, but in order for modifications to suit your needs, you must tell FDA what your needs are.

The means for affecting change is through comments to the FDA. The rules are complicated, and well-reasoned comments will be given more weight as FDA edits the rules.

This webinar is intended to give you the information you need to make a good comment so that regulations meet the need of keeping food safe, but do not seriously negatively affect your business.

Food Hubs and Farm to School
Farm to school programs have been very successful at getting good, healthy, local, whole foods to our nation's students. However, some schools and districts find that their school food service professionals, who already have so many responsibilities, have limited time and resources for managing food aggregation logistics. Food hubs hold great promise to help.

In Chicago, Gourmet Gorilla focuses its operations on the school market. With convenient online ordering for schools either on a monthly or daily basis, Gourmet Gorilla offers healthy, sustainable, local food sourced from many different area suppliers. And because Gourmet Gorilla is founded on providing food with values, there is assurance that what is served to the kids is wholesome and good.

In Michigan, Cherry Capital Foods, a food hub with diverse markets, counts schools as an important one. They have had excellent successes, such as a large contract with traditional foodservice provider Chartwells, becoming a USDA approved vendor, and a partnership with a local nonprofit in a farm to school project.

These examples of food hubs enabling farm to school are sure to inspire you to consider working with your area food hubs for your work.

State of the Food Hub - National Survey Results
Food hubs - businesses or organizations that actively manage the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand – hold incredible promise for positive impacts. At the middle of the food value chain, hubs’ influence on the economy, social equity, and the environment can be great.

Proponents and detractors alike, including funders, academics and food hub managers, are seeking real data that can better explain the scope and scale of food hub activities and their influence on their regions. In early 2013, the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems in cooperation with the Wallace Center at Winrock International surveyed over 100 food hubs across the country to understand their businesses, their impacts and their challenges. Join us for this webinar as we present the State of the Food Hub.

Key findings from the report are presented including:

The operating structures that food hubs have taken on
Food hub’s employee and management profiles
Information about food hub producers and customers
Information regarding the financial status of food hubs
Major challenges and barriers to growth faced by food hubs

Permalink

Jul 31, 2013
NGFN Webinars, Summer 2013

By Jeff Farbman | Webinar Maestro

NGFN’s monthly webinars are a great way for us to provide technical assistance to practitioners creating a food system with more Good Food, and to share our work with the public.

The NGFN Food Hub Collaboration is a partnership between Wallace Center at Winrock International, USDA, National Good Food Network, and others. The Collaboration is working to ensure the success of existing and emerging food hubs in the US by building capacity through connection, outreach, research, technical assistance and partnerships. By supporting this crucial player in the value chain we aim to accelerate the growth of regional food systems that make healthy and affordable food available to all communities while fostering viable markets of scale for regionally focused producers.

Most recently, we collaborated on two national food hub studies, through which we identified and measured the financial sustainability of food hubs across the country, and researched the overall state of food hubs in the U.S. We are pleased to present the results of these studies in the following upcoming webinars (and don’t forget to check out our archives)!

Coming up:

Pathways to Food Hub Success: Financial Benchmark Metrics and Measurements for Regional Food Hubs – August 15 – Register now!
Food Hubs strengthen regional food systems by supplying local foods to schools, hospitals, restaurants and other institutions, as well as directly to consumers. Their aggregation, sales, and distribution activity increases farm-gate demand for local foods, creating new markets for small producers. But are food hubs economically sustainable? Can food hubs do well by doing good?

This webinar will describe the lessons learned from the recent benchmarking study of food hub financial and operational characteristics. The presentation will highlight how successful food hubs across the nation have achieved their mission and goals through financial and business metrics.

Understanding this landmark study will benefit all manner of people interested in regional food systems: food hub operators will be able to identify performance standards and improvement strategies; farmers will gain a better understanding of their ability to access new markets through food hubs; researchers and local food advocacy organizations will benefit from the business-based analysis of food hub functions and operational issues; and private lenders and public sector funders will gain insight on strategic investment strategies for food hubs that will lead to positive economic and sustainable outcomes.

State of the Food Hub - National Survey Results – September 19 – Register now!
NGFN Food Hub Collaboration, including Michigan State University, USDA Agricultural marketing Service and the Wallace Center surveyed over 100 food hubs across the country to understand their businesses, their impacts, their challenges and their innovations. This webinar accompanies the release of the full report on the state of food hubs in the US today. Register now!

Food Hubs and Farm to School – October 17 – Register now!
Farm to school programs have been very successful at getting good, healthy, local, whole foods to our nation's students. But it can be difficult to add aggregation logistics on top of already-taxed school food service professionals. Food hubs hold great promise for bridging that gap. Join us for some inspiring examples of successful food hub-assisted farm to school programs.

And from the archives:

June 20, 2013: Raising Dough for Food Businesses – View the Recording

Lack of access to capital can be one of the most significant problems for food businesses. There are more types of capital than ever before to support food businesses, but many don't know they exist, the resources can be challenging to access and even more, it’s hard to tell which type will be the best for each business.

Elizabeth Ü, author of the new book “Raising Dough” (order now), provides a helpful framework for thinking about appropriate financing sources for enterprises, sensitive to their unique values, priorities, and where they are in the business lifecycle. Her presentation is designed primarily for organizations that work with socially responsible food businesses, such as people who work for nonprofits, government offices, economic development companies, consulting firms, lenders, foundations, family offices. Of course the same principles apply to fundraising entrepreneurs themselves, who will leave with lots of tools to work with in their quest to raise money.

Gray Harris, of Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI), a community development finance institution (CDFI) in Maine, joins the conversation to give some detailed, illustrative examples of their investments, and investment strategies in regional food systems.

May 16, 2013: Starting a Food Hub: Successful Hubs Share Their Stories – View the Recording

Food hubs hold great promise for a myriad of positive community impacts – economic development and job creation, farmland preservation, environmental sustainability... the list goes on.

But how do you start a food hub?

This webinar brings together the stories of the formation and first year of three different, successful food hubs. Our presenters share some of the best decisions they made … and some of the worst. What types of contacts did they feel really helped their business to thrive? How much money did they need, and how did they get it? Why did they choose their incorporation status? And more...

If you are an emerging hub - in the planning stages - or work with groups who are considering forming a food hub, please listen to this webinar for inspiration and instruction.

Permalink

May 8, 2013
NGFN Webinars, Spring 2013

By Jeff Farbman | Producer, NGFN Webinars

Last week I got an email that started:

Hi Jeff – First, thanks for all you’re doing to help us in the field who are trying to make the local food and economic development connections work for our communities! Your webinars and newsletters have been very helpful.

It's feedback like that (and the hundreds and hundreds of people who register for our webinars) that let us know that our hard work is paying off, and people are really finding great value in our webinars.

Coming up:

May 16: Starting a Food Hub: Successful Hubs Share Their Stories - Register now!

Food hubs hold great promise for a myriad of positive community impacts - economic development and job creation, farmland preservation, environmental sustainability... the list goes on.

But how do you start a food hub?

This webinar brings together the stories of the formation and first year of three different, successful food hubs. Our presenters will share some of the best decisions they made … and some of the worst. What types of contacts did they feel really helped their business to thrive? How much money did they need, and how did they get it? Why did they choose their incorporation status? And more...

If you are an emerging hub - in the planning stages - or work with groups who are considering forming a food hub, please join us for inspiration and instruction.

June 20: Raising Dough: Financing for Food - Register now!

"Raising Dough," a band-new book (available for pre-order now), is an encyclopedic treatment of different options food business have for acquiring capital. Elizabeth U, the author of this landmark book, leads an interactive session on how one chooses the right financial instruments for their food business.

And our archives:

April 25, 2013: Opportunity Knocks: Two Underutilized USDA Programs For Supporting Local and Regional Food Systems
Are you a for-profit business, a nonprofit, or a state, local or tribal government looking to finance a local or regional food system project? Listen to this webinar to learn about two USDA programs you may never have heard of: the Business and Industry Loan Guarantee program and the Community Facilities Loan and Grant program. USDA Rural Development can provide significant funding and technical assistance for local and regional food system infrastructure – and applications are being accepted now. Learn from USDA program experts and recipients who have successfully used these programs on this webinar.
Special guest: Kathleen Merrigan, outgoing Deputy Secretary of USDA and a champion of local and regional food systems.

April 18, 2013: Local Meats Processing: Successes and Innovations
Local meat and poultry can’t get to market without a processor, but processors are pulled in many directions: Farmers would like more processing options, the kind of processing needed depends on the market the regulations are complex regulations, and even with premium-priced meats, the profit margins are slim.
So how can local meat processing survive ... and even thrive? Lauren Gwin and Arion Thiboumery, co-founders and co-coordinators of the national Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network, will share the results of their research on this topic, featuring innovations and lessons learned from successful processors around the country.
We’ll also hear from several regional support efforts to improve access to local processing: Kathleen Harris, of the Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company; Casey McKissick, of NC Choices and the Carolina Meat Conference; and Chelsea Bardot Lewis, of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and Vermont Meat Processing Task Force.

March 28, 2013: One Page Risk Management Plan

You probably know that business and financial planning can increase the financial performance of your farm, help you understand your business by being able to compare it to similar businesses, reduce your financial risk, increase your time efficiency, and improve your operation in other ways.
So why aren’t you planning?
Chances are you would like to make plans for your future, but it’s difficult to understand where to begin. This webinar gives you three powerful, yet simple tools to begin the planning process for your farm. Each tool is just one page, but employing them will clarify your vision of your business, enable you to make well-considered financial decisions, and cut through confusion of what to do next when presented with day-to-day challenges.
This webinar explains the theory and take you through how one farm might use these tools to focus and succeed in farming.

February 21, 2013: On-farm Food Safety and Access to Larger Markets
For recording, slides, presenter bios and more, visit this webinar's full pageOn-farm food safety is on the mind of those looking to support the success of small and mid-sized, sustainable producers. We dig into two cutting edge issues:
More and more wholesale and institutional buyers are requiring on-farm food safety certification, making these markets extremely difficult to participate in for smaller farmers due to the expense of GAP auditing. The Wallace Center is working with USDA to identify and run several pilots at food hubs of a group GAP approach. Instead of the current "one farm, one audit" protocol, participants in a group GAP audit have their shared food safety system audited, and are audited as one body. This method opens markets to producers who would otherwise be priced out.
The Food and Drug Administration just released two proposed rules outlining new standards for produce safety and preventive controls for food processing and manufacturing. These two rules, along with existing food safety regimes, create a maze of challenges for the development and growth of local and regional food systems. Learn about the new proposed rules, models for addressing food safety, and how to get involved in supporting sustainable food systems and safe food.
Panelists
Steve Warshawer, NGFN Food Safety Coordinator
Ariane Lotti, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.