Case Study: Damian’s Craft Meats Processing Facility
Damian's Craft Meats (DCM) provides on-farm animal processing services for producers in southeast Michigan. Demand for Damian’s processing services has far outpaced the company's capacity since opening in 2014. It surged to a new level during the pandemic when other...
Equity in Food System Planning
Over the past several years, scholars in planning and public health have increasingly called attention to inequities in the food system. One recent article that caused us to reflect on our practice here at New Venture Advisors is "Planning for Regional Food...
Introducing the Readiness Rubric for Food Facility Development: Helping You Get to the Next Level
New Venture Advisors is seeing a growing number of Community Food Center and innovative food facility projects develop across the United States. We are constantly talking with teams and individuals who have big dreams and come to us for help or are looking for grants...
Transformative Food Systems Policies: Not Just For Portland Anymore!
Recently, New Venture Advisors presented to the Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health Community Health Academy. The Community Health Academy is a learning collaborative of mayors and city leaders from across the state of Idaho. They work together to learn about...
Forces for Good Food: Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health
New Venture Advisors is privileged to work alongside powerful forces driving progress toward building food systems we can all be proud of. These forces—our collaborators, partners, clients, visionaries—are leaders in changing how we think about and act regarding food....
Engaging Stakeholders for Project Sustainability
Food systems are made up of people engaged in creation, commerce, and community from production to consumption. For any food business, policy, or plan to be viable, it must take into account the influence, needs, roles, and impact of all stakeholders in that...
Case Study: Shenandoah Agricultural Enterprise Center
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...
Case Study: The Good Food Collective
The Good Food Collective (GFC) aims to build a vibrant economy, steward natural resources, and support the physical and cultural health of the Durango, Colorado area by investing in the regional food system. In collaboration with many local partners, GFC harvests...
Case Study: Wichita-Sedgwick County Food System Master Plan
The City of Wichita (pop’n 390,000), located in Sedgwick County, Kansas, is in the south-central part of the state. For the past 20 years, the Health and Wellness Coalition of Wichita has promoted people, programs, and policies that build a healthier community. The...
Good Food Glossary: Food System Plan
A Food System Plan, as defined by the American Planning Association, is “a set of interconnected, forward-thinking activities that strengthen a community and regional food system through the creation and implementation of plans and policies.” The overall goal is to...
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...
