Improving Technical Assistance for Emerging Food-Based Businesses

Improving Technical Assistance for Emerging Food-Based Businesses

Summary

Demand for local food in the Pioneer Valley is booming, so many farmers are looking to add value to their products and reach more local markets. Food-based entrepreneurs (which we define as both farmers and non-farmers who are adding value to or marketing products made with local ingredients) have a key role to play in scaling up our local food system to meet this demand, but our region has not yet fully invested in their success. This project will create a “food-entrepreneur-friendly” environment in our region by improving technical assistance for local food-based businesses.

Businesses with a serious commitment to local agriculture face unique challenges, and conventional business development assistance and financing agencies are often unfamiliar with these challenges and with the innovative solutions food-based entrepreneurs devise. In this project, we will convene, network, and train existing small business development and support organizations to increase their capacity for meeting the needs of food-based entrepreneurs in western Massachusetts. We are working closely with the Franklin County CDC and their Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, a business incubator and shared commercial kitchen, to plan and provide the training and networking activities. The project manager will compile and disseminate a directory of resources available to local food-based entrepreneurs, and a “lessons learned” summary that can support replication and discussion.

Objectives/Performance Targets

1. Research the agencies providing technical assistance to businesses in our region (July-November 2011):
(a) Conduct interviews with existing food-based businesses and with farmers and entrepreneurs who have considered starting a new enterprise, asking them about their use of technical service providers;
(b) Interview existing agencies, questioning them about the services they provide, their service areas, their referral methods, and other agencies providing services to small businesses. In addition, we will ask what they’d like to know about working with food-based businesses, and what information they have to share with other service providers.

• Planned and held a Food Entrepreneur Focus Group. Eight food entrepreneurs discussed technical assistance and financing for food ventures.
  Conducted two additional interviews with existing entrepreneurs and four with food business start-ups
  Planned and participated in Pioneer Valley Grows Fall Forum, which focused on entrepreneurship in the local food system and featured speakers from six enterprises.
  Meetings with eight agencies that provide services to entrepreneurs and businesses in our region. In some cases these were formal interviews and in other cases the meeting was focused on technical assistance for food businesses but did not take the format of an interview.

2. Compile information about the unique challenges of local food-based businesses and best support practices (July-November 2011):
(a) Reach out to existing local foods entrepreneurs, including farmers, to learn what services and technical assistance could benefit them now, what they could have used when their business was beginning, and what assistance was most valuable;
(b) Reach out to existing local-food entrepreneurs and the farmers that supply them to learn about best practices for sourcing local ingredients;
(c) Work with the Franklin County CDC to document their approach to supporting food-based businesses;

• See above information about focus group and interviews.
  We are beginning to work with the Franklin County CDC to document their knowledge and approach and to prepare for the workshop, below.

3. Hold a workshop and networking session at which service providers can learn from the Franklin County CDC, from each other, and from existing local foods-based businesses (March 2012);
(a) Develop training materials in collaboration with the Franklin County CDC (November 2011-February 2012).
(b) This half-day training session will include three primary components: a roundtable session during which agencies can share their experience and expertise and learn about the programs of others; a training session, during which the Franklin County CDC will present their best practices for work with food-based businesses; and a panel presentation by existing food-based businesses discussing their current or former technical assistance needs.

• We have begun working to plan this workshop, which will probably take place in May. We are working closely with the Franklin County CDC to plan the structure and content of the training session.

4. Compile a directory of service providers and make it available to agencies so that they can provide appropriate referrals to clients (March-April 2012).
(a) Information gathered from interviews and from the training session will be compiled in a directory of service providers which details their services and areas of expertise and their geographic service areas.

• We are currently planning the structure, content, and outreach plan for creating a directory of service providers.

Accomplishments/Milestones

In October, we held a focus group with eight food entrepreneurs, on the topics of technical assistance and financing. The information we gained was valuable, and we have shared it with the partners in the Pioneer Valley Grows Loan Fund, including community lenders and two other agencies that provide technical assistance services for farm and food businesses. Focus group participants were enthusiastic about the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion with other business owners. Thus, the focus group served both research and networking goals. We did not initially plan to use a formal focus group structure for this information gathering, but we found it to be extremely useful both to us and to the participants. We expect to repeat the focus group with different participants in the winter or early spring.

In addition to the focus group, we have interviewed two existing food business owners and four food business start-ups. We also planned and participated in the Pioneer Valley Grows Fall Forum, which focused on entrepreneurship in the local food system and featured speakers from six enterprises.

Our research with entrepreneurs has indicated that peer mentoring is a very important source of information and advice. In addition, businesses mentioned the value of expert assistance in business decision-making beyond the start-up phase. The experience of interviewees and focus group participants in financing their businesses varied quite widely. Two flexible financing tools which business owners value are interest-only periods at the beginning of a loan and payment plans which recognize seasonal fluctuations in income.

We held meetings with six agencies that provide services to entrepreneurs and businesses in our region. Interest in food-based businesses is high, and agencies have a new recognition of the potential importance of locally grown food in the regional economy, but their knowledge of the particular needs of food-based businesses varies widely.

We have expanded our plans for a directory of service providers to include not only agencies such as community development corporations or small business advisors, but also consultants who provide services such as logo design and information about nutrition label requirements. We are developing questions and a structure for collecting the information and making it available using on-line tools, allowing the directory to be easily updated by the individuals and agencies who are listed in it.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Our work thus far has reinforced our understanding that peer-to-peer learning is very important for farmers and food entrepreneurs. Business owners also recognize some important roles for service providers, non-profits, and consultants, including supporting and organizing mentoring and networking opportunities, providing general information useful to many businesses (e.g. a marketing workshop), and helping business owners identify and access the tools and information they need to make business decisions throughout the life of their business. We continue to be enthusiastic about the potential to improve the services that food business entrepreneurs receive from the technical assistance providers in our region.

Collaborators: