Is your community ready for a Food System Plan? Here’s how to know.
As communities mature in their food systems work, they often recognize that they need a roadmap to guide their work more strategically. We’ve heard from communities big and small across the country with a common question: How do we know what policies and programs we...
Case Study: Linn County Food System Assessment
The Linn County Food Systems Council has ambitious goals to improve Linn County’s food system from production to consumption in order to build resilient supply chains that feed the community and stimulate economic development. The council’s primary goal is to increase...
Co-op Grocery: A Social Justice Movement
Food co-ops are rooted in social justice movements, but they have experienced the most growth during periods of economic crisis. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a need for equitable access to food, but the pandemic has sparked a new level of interest in...
Good Food Glossary: Food Co-op
“A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise” (Neighboring Food Co-ops) A co-operative can be used...
Case Study: Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Market
The Great Plains Food Bank serves every county in North Dakota as well as western Minnesota, working with community partners to efficiently secure and direct resources and eradicate hunger in their communities. Their current operations include statewide distribution...
COVID-19 Exposes Inequities in Our Food System
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the challenges within our current food system. For those who have spent decades working on the front lines, it is a relief to finally see news headlines bringing to light the deep systemic flaws...
Building Disaster Resilience
If ever there was a time to seek solutions toward building more resilient communities, it is now. Regardless of social and political debates around climate change, society has reached a point where humans’ impact on the natural environment has resulted in devastating...
Agile Yet Fragile: 11 Themes from our Food System Survey
Food has never been a bigger story than since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. The news has been heartbreaking and at the same time awe-inspiring to see the scale of response and sheer ingenuity in many corners of the food system. One good thing in the midst of...
Pandemic Pivots: 3 Stories of Innovation and Collaboration
Sometimes the perfect storm for innovation is a crisis (or global pandemic) that pushes organizations further into their mission. Or it creates an opportunity to try something that under normal conditions would seem outrageous, but suddenly seems like the only option...
Food & Faith: A Shared Kitchen Starter Guide for Houses of Worship
Late last summer we were contacted by Open Door Advisors with a remarkable question: “Would you be interested in writing a starter guide to help houses of worship use their facilities as community kitchens?” YES! I could not believe that the idea hadn’t already...
Forces for Good Food: Whatcom Community Foundation
Large food system changes need innovative thinkers, like the Whatcom Community Foundation in Washington State, that galvanizes the larger community to build a viable local food system that feeds people and sustains the land. Their vision is to develop a local food...
Case Study: Oneida Food Innovation Center
The Oneida Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Oneida people, with a reservation located on 65,000 acres near Green Bay, Wisconsin. The tribe works to offer programs, services, and resources that enable the community to carry on with the strength and...
Community Food Centers for Health, Wealth & Equity
Community Food Centers are an exciting development in food system infrastructure and make up an increasing share of our work at New Venture Advisors. In this screencast I’ll share some of the elements we’re seeing come together in Community Food Centers across the...
Good Food Glossary: Community Food Centers
Our work at New Venture Advisors has evolved over the years. We began doing food system planning ten years ago, when much of our work centered on developing food hubs that aggregated local food and distributed it to local outlets. This eventually gave way to...
Forces for Good Food: CommonWealth Kitchen
We are excited to spotlight CommonWealth Kitchen in our Forces for Good Food series. CommonWealth Kitchen is Greater Boston’s only food business incubator / accelerator and integrated “small batch” food manufacturer, providing shared-use kitchens, wrap-around...
8 Ideas from 2019 Worth Sharing
As many of you know, we publish a monthly Good Food Brief with the big and small stories that chronicle trends in the food industry. Sometimes we come across programs that we wish had news coverage so that we could share them with you. Programs that serve often...
The Question of Growth: Not Just for Kitchen Members
The growth cycle of most small businesses that make their start in a shared kitchen or kitchen incubator is different from a business operating within its own space. Both face the normal challenges of scaling and the capital needed to support their growth, but...
Good Food Glossary: Ghost Kitchen
A simple definition of ghost kitchen is “commercial cooking space with no dine-in option” (QSR Magazine). The concept derived from restaurants that wanted to increase their meal delivery capacity to meet demand without having to increase the size of their storefronts....
Opportunity Zones: An Emerging but Proven Investment Vehicle for Food System Development
At New Venture Advisors we partner with our clients to help them plan and implement important food systems initiatives that provide significant and meaningful outcomes to the communities they serve. These projects sometimes require creative, small-scale approaches to...
Forces For Good Food Spotlight Series: MSU Center for Regional Food Systems
We are excited to highlight Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems (CRFS) in our latest installment of our Forces for Good Food series. CRFS envisions “a thriving economy, equity, and sustainability for Michigan, the country, and the planet...
Lessons from a Food System Plan: “Our County Did a Lot Right”
Food System Planning: What is it? Why do it? Cities and counties across the U.S. create Master Plans or Comprehensive Plans to lay out their community’s vision for land use, economic development, transportation, health, and other dimensions of civic life. These plans...
Good Food Glossary: Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is a term and practice gaining attention throughout the worlds of food and climate science and increasingly appearing in mainstream conversations. Regenerative agriculture refers to “agricultural practices that work closely with nature to...
How Health Care is Influencing Food System Planning
“Let thy food be medicine and medicine be thy food,” reads the famous Hippocrates quote that opens many forays into the topic. Imagine a world where nutritious food can combat illness and drug dependency. While the food-as-medicine movement has been around for...
Forces for Good Food Spotlight Series: Eastern Market
Eastern Market is well known for its work as a large public market that has been a cornerstone in Detroit since the 1890s. Five different markets — a variety of year-round and seasonal markets — serve between 500-600 transient vendors. Its reach, though, is much...
