Jun 17, 2021 | Case Study, Community Food Centers, Feasibility Studies
The Central Shenandoah Valley, population 368,000, is a large geographic area spanning 4,264 square miles in western Virginia. The region includes seven counties—Augusta, Bath, Highland, Page, Rockbridge, Rockingham, and Shenandoah—and the five independent cities of Buena Vista, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Staunton, and Waynesboro. The Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission (CSPDC) represents the governments in this area […]
Jan 22, 2019 | Food System, Good Food Glossary, Local Food
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a farming practice that promotes a shared commitment by consumers and growers to build a more local and equitable agricultural system. Introduced in the mid-80s, CSAs are “a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, […]
Nov 21, 2018 | Food Access, Good Food Glossary
What is a food desert? The CDC characterizes a food desert as an area lacking in affordable fruits and vegetables, often found in rural, minority or low-income areas where access to healthy foods are limited (CDC 2011). In recent years, the term has been used to characterize a number of scenarios: a community’s low access […]
Sep 11, 2018 | Good Food Glossary, Kitchen Incubators
A simple definition of a shared-use kitchen is a certified commercial kitchen in which individuals or businesses prepare value-added food products and meals, usually paying an hourly or daily rate to lease a space shared by others. These spaces are most often used by culinary or packaged food entrepreneurs and can have positive social, economic, […]
Jul 25, 2018 | Food Access, Rural Grocery
A year ago, we started work on a project for the Kansas-based Sunflower Foundation, in partnership with the Rural Grocery Initiative (RGI) at Kansas State University, to understand the challenges rural grocery stores face. Of particular focus was the issue of distribution in light of the recent consolidation of two major food wholesalers in the […]
Jun 22, 2018 | Food System, Good Food Glossary
Why a Value Chain is the new Supply Chain While presenting to a client in Texas on supply chains, we realized that we were using the words supply chain and value chain interchangeably — is that correct? The answer is no. But, like all “food system terms” in the Good Food Glossary, it’s complicated. A […]
Jun 20, 2018 | Feasibility Studies, Food Business Planning, Food Hubs, Local Food, Toolsite
New Venture Advisors launched the MarketSizer® and HubSizer® Toolsite earlier this year to enable anyone to conduct preliminary assessments of various types of food system infrastructure. The results allow users to refine their food business concepts and due diligence plans. The Toolsite has been used by more than 1,000 visitors since March 2018. We surveyed […]
Jun 15, 2018 | Feasibility Studies, Food Business Planning, Frozen Processing, Toolsite
A microblog series on the HubSizer® and MarketSizer® tools from New Venture Advisors Are you a food hub that sees surges from your farmers in broccoli in the summer or beets in the fall? Have you been trying to figure out how to take advantage of a big glut of produce during the growing season […]
May 5, 2018 | Feasibility Studies, Food Business Planning, Kitchen Incubators, Toolsite
A microblog series on the HubSizer® and MarketSizer® tools from New Venture Advisors. Do you own or have access to an entire building, space or business and want to convert it into a commercial kitchen or food business incubator but are not sure where to start? Today we’ll show you how to use the Kitchen […]
Apr 26, 2018 | Feasibility Studies, Food Business Planning, Food Hubs, Toolsite
A microblog series on the HubSizer® and MarketSizer® tools from New Venture Advisors. Over the past few weeks we’ve explored how to analyze a market for local food with the Local Food MarketSizer® tool; investigated how to turn a grocery store into a food hub with the Rural Grocery HubSizer® tool; and most recently we […]