One of the funny ironies of nonprofit work is that every day some new report crosses your desk, promising EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES! BEST PRACTICES! REPLICABLE MODELS! - but it is nearly impossible to make the time to read the very research that could help you do your job better.

So here I am, on vacation, paging through the Wallace Center's gigantic new report on Community Food Enterprises.

What are Community Food Enterprises, you ask? Why is it so compelling that I am willing to spend precious vacation hours reading about them? Essentially, a CFE is a food-related business that: 

"...[is] capable of achieving a positive cash flow."

"...[is] involved in the growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, marketing, distributing, wholesaling, retailing, or serving of some kind of foodstuff."

"...[is] more than 50% owned by people residing in the immediate geographic community."

"...[places] most of the legal rights and responsibilities of running the company in local hands."

(You can read the full 800-word definition if you're so inclined here.)

Food businesses that fit this definition are exactly what successul regional food systems need. And in actuality, many of them already exist, they're just fighting to survive in a system that's been altered to work against them.

For many years CFEs dominated local markets. Globalization shattered this old economic order. Industrial scale agriculture displaced smaller farms, food processing moved to centralized manufacturers, and chain supermarkets and restaurants displaced local grocers and diners. In the radically altered world of multinational business, the smaller scale of CFEs appeared to doom them. Among their many disadvantages, compared to bigger national and international players, were larger fixed costs, more inexperienced managers, more limited distribution networks, less potent marketing, and poorer access to talent, capital, and technology.

Right. A familiar story, but it's not the whole story. The report details what works best about CFEs and how they can succeed in all parts of the food system, from production to processing to the dinner table. Entrepreneurs who know how to turn social performance factors - treating employees right, caring for the land, giving back to the community - into competitive advantages have the potential to create viable, replicable CFEs.

The U.S. case studies are an inspiring list - and, most compelling, each features a section on the financial performance and particular challenges of any one enterprise. This is the stuff you can't find on, say, the Intervale's website. And it will help entrepreneurs and nonprofit folks like me do a better job of finding those best practices and replicable models to apply locally. Access to capital shows up frequently in the "challenges" section on each case study - innovative ideas aren't always the easiest to fund. Being able to point to something successful being done elsewhere and then detail how you're going to make it work locally is likely to help.

The U.S. case studies are a little light on rural solutions - many of these projects are based in, or primarily serve, large urban/suburban markets. Are the CFE challenges outlined in the report just particularly acute in rural communities or did the authors miss an important angle on the story? What do you think?

And hey, Oregon, why don't we have anything on the list?

Here's an idea: Can anyone suggest some fantastic Community Food Enterprises based in Oregon? Send me your examples and we'll feature them here on the RIPPLE blog in the coming weeks.

© 2009–2012 Rural Development Initiatives, Inc.
Contributor Login   |   Terms & Privacy Policy