Suggested by CB Christina Bernard almost 2 years ago
Farmers often lose money. In fact, mid, small, and urban farms have margins as low as 10%. But customers do want to support them. The issue is that customers like delivery and pre-processed foods.
What if those could collide in an infrastructure that helped post-process and delivery food in local markets? It helps farmers with the marketing and delivery component. And give access to communities looking for those items.
On top of that, the marketing insights could help formulate products consumers want which helps in crop planning.
The US government is investing in small, mid, and urban farming technologies. They have grants to get solutions off the grant. More farms are popping up around the US since the Covid19 scare.
And consumers, want to know where their food was made.
Are you interested in addressing this Unmet Need?
Are you interested in addressing this Unmet Need?
Scientist- Process development
I don’t know your level of familiarity with the food industry so I will explain this as though you were new to the industry, so if you are an expert I sincerely apologize. What you are describing sounds kind of like a farmer coop. These can vary in size but some very successful examples are Cabot, Tillamook, and Dairy Famers or America. These companies allow for the pooling of capital to buy processing equipment for the farmers products and create a single point of sale for that product. In the case of Cabot and tillamook this takes the shape of value added and branded products. In DFA’s case they produce commoditized products but the capital pooling allows for access to manufacturing and distribution scale that any one farm could never acquire allowing them to be price competitive on the market without compete if against their fellow farmers using the only lever they have, cost. Farmer’s fundamental problem is that they create a commodity with a million little companies in the same market. The coop allows for an increase in market power and scale. If I were looking to start a new coop, I would look for a commodity that 1. Cargill is not already in. 2. Has a commercial product that their product can make where their commodity is the thing the companies are trying to take out.
Or try to create something new and delicious that no one has ever done before. Although this path is much much more difficult
Business Consultant @ Revitup Ventures LLC
Linking farms to local restaurants, food trucks, manufacturers could help. Pre-processing on the farms would help.