Square Root Community Food Center A Powerful Investment in Community Resilience We believe in a deeper understanding of how re-­‐‑built food systems can support health on all levels – healthy environments, healthy economies, healthy communities and healthy bodies. Excerpt from High Mowing Seeds Philosophy Statement What is a Community Food Center? A Community Food Center (CFC) is a welcoming and collaborative space that provides the means and knowledge necessary for a community to access fresh, healthy food and enhances and supports a diverse food economy. Its physical form, operations, and programming can be tailored to meet the needs of the community. CFCs offer multifaceted, integrated, and responsive programming in a shared space where food builds health, opportunity, skills, and community. Our CFC – The Square Root Community Food Center is a multi-­‐‑faceted facility that incorporates a commercial kitchen, cold and dry food storage, warehousing, community event and workshop space, garden space, and logistical, financial, and capacity-­‐‑building support that will: -­‐‑ Expand and strengthen the local food economy by creating links between local farmers and our community; -­‐‑ Create a mechanism for local investment in good food and a healthier, more equitable, more vibrant community; -­‐‑ Increase food literacy and security by making connections between local food access, food-­‐‑related skills and better health; -­‐‑ Promote cultural, ecological and economic diversity and justice; In reaching these goals, Square Root will focus on efforts to better support our citizens, farmers, and entrepreneurs while building a more resilient food system for North Central Florida. Why a Community Food Center for Gainesville? The southeastern United States, and particularly Florida, has been identified by many national funding agencies and food systems organizations as an area critically lacking in the infrastructure and support systems necessary for food security and a robust local food system. In our own community we face several challenges in this regard, some of which include: (1) Our local farmers do not have a market for their seconds and culls. (2) Gainesville’s only kitchen incubator has closed and there is no longer a location for food businesses to incubate, and for existing entrepreneurs to expand their food-­‐‑based businesses. (3) We currently lack local investment mechanisms that would provide community members the ability to support development and expansion of sustainable locally-­‐‑owned businesses. (4) Our community does not currently have a dedicated space to provide food education, workshops and meeting space to focus on food resiliency. (5) Our East Gainesville community is severely underserved in regards to food health, education, sustainable job opportunities, and purchasing options. While these are all serious challenges, we believe there are immediate opportunities to address these issues and integrate the necessary infrastructure to make our community more resilient, healthy and justly served. Each one of the above challenges pose an opportunity to transform our local food system one solution at a time. While these solutions will require capital and community buy in, we believe that the value created by addressing these issues have unparalleled importance. Our local farmers do not have a market for their seconds and culls. Florida is one of the largest agricultural states in the country, yet less than 10% of food grown in our state stays local. Even more surprising is that some products never make it to market because their appearance is less attractive or there is too much competition in the market from imports. With few markets willing to purchase these “seconds, culls or gluts”, farmers will leave them to rot and eventually till them back into the soil. Our solution: Research from our feasibility study shows there are a number of institutions, restaurants and businesses willing to purchase local products, especially those that are competitively priced like these lower-­‐‑grade products, but there are few existing channels to connect these buyers and sellers. By creating a buying club and posting weekly newsletters to potential customers, Square Root can become a service hub to coordinate the supply and connect the demand without ever taking ownership of the product. By providing the infrastructure and staffing support to aggregate, process, and value-­‐‑add food from local farms as a “co-­‐‑packer”, we will also offer assistance for farmers who want to capture more value from their commodities locally. With relationships across the state, we can also access more local food, facilitating bulk purchasing with local businesses for items needed by farmers, entrepreneurs, and members of the center. How we’ll fund it: In order to cover the cost for our coordination service, we would charge a yearly membership for customers to become part of this buying club, and Square Root would receive a small percentage from all goods sold. Gainesville’s only kitchen incubator has closed and there is no longer a location for food businesses to incubate. Blue Oven Kitchens has served our community food entrepreneurs for many years. Earlier this year, they decided to give up the lease on their certified kitchen and suddenly an asset that many incubating food businesses depended on was no more. A kitchen incubator is a paramount component to supporting food industry innovation and growing the overall health of our food system. Our Solution: In partnership with Blue Oven Kitchens, we will design and build a new certified kitchen with expanded resources for food incubating businesses. We will pair this new facility with workshops and education to help these food businesses smartly scale their production. This kitchen will also serve as co-­‐‑packing facility and storage space to support existing entrepreneurs who seek to expand their business. Square Root will also host food-­‐‑based workshops that help further community education, creativity, and the assimilation of culturally-­‐‑based knowledge and health education and skills. How we’ll fund it: Incubating food businesses will be charged a monthly fee based on the extent of their kitchen needs and storage needs. The space will double as a co-­‐‑packing facility and customers will be charged for production, labeling, packing, and storage. These two revenue generators will also be paired with monthly cooking workshops, where participants will pay for wide ranging cooking lessons. Our goals will be to maximize the kitchen capacity at all times. Square Root will also use the co-­‐‑packing line and idle kitchen time to develop a line of products that will make use of local agricultural products and provide a source of revenue. We do not have a local investment mechanism for our community members to support and benefit from the development of sustainable, locally-­‐‑owned business. Although local businesses can sometimes access investment capital or traditional loans, this money is often expensive, risky, and can be hard to attain. This limits the number of local businesses that go from a cottage industry to a full-­‐‑fledged enterprise and limits our Regions’ potential for economic development. Our Solution: As of 2015, the Slow Money network of Nurture Capital investors and investment clubs has leveraged the power of local accredited and non-­‐‑accredited investors to catalyze more than $48 million to over 470 local and organic food enterprises. These investments range from a few thousand to several hundred thousand dollars, and represent a subset of patient investing into sustainable local organic food, farming and ranching enterprises, which, in 2013 was $293 million. We will work with members of our team that have experience and knowledge in the realm of investment, financial counseling, and Slow Money concepts to connect with individuals and investment clubs, or other investment platforms such as Direct Public Offerings, to help build our local food sector. How we’ll fund it: We will harness local capital to support businesses that incubate at the center; leveraging our relationships with both local food system leaders and food hubs across the state to expand our reach. Broadening public engagement and investment support builds positive feedback that attracts more entrepreneurs and Center participants. Our community does not currently have a dedicated space to provide food education, workshops and meeting space to focus on long-­‐‑term food resiliency. Every community needs an event space where community members can come together to further their knowledge, co-­‐‑create food oriented goals, and identify strategic advancement opportunities to further the health of the local food system. Our Solution: Connected to the certified kitchen will be a space that will be used for workshops, events and general community organizing around food related topics. Whether it’s a popup dinner by one of incubating food businesses, a vermiculture workshop, or a meeting of the minds to outline new policy, our space will be the hub where it’s done. This space will also create synergy and expand collaboration in our community by creating a “collision point” as organizations utilize the space and their leaders connect with each other. How we’ll fund it: Since part of this business model will be non-­‐‑profit, grants and pledge partner funding, especially for the educational, health equity, and advocacy components will be part of our funding mix. This space will also be rented out at a competitive rate, and the workshops held will provide paying members with an exceptional value. One key goal is to find an (or a few) anchor tenant(s) that is a local food-­‐‑based company looking to expand and/or that needs dedicated storage space or co-­‐‑packing services. Several companies have been identified that could fill this niche and we are exploring these options. Our East Gainesville community is severely underserved in regards to food health, food education, and purchasing options. It is no secret that East Gainesville has fewer options when it comes to jobs and healthy food purchasing options. While this may be some of the hardest work our community food center undertakes, it is also some of the most important. Our Solution: We will begin by creating relationships with civic groups, churches and residents to identify gaps in the system. Only once we understand the gaps and build partnerships, will we be able to propose strategic actions to move forward in creating a more equitable and just food system. We will also focus employment and food-­‐‑related business opportunities on those most in need and will work with programs like Farm to School to Work to create an education to work pipeline that will train and employ at risk and special needs youth and adults. Skill-­‐‑building programs offered through the shared commercial grade kitchen, community gardens and educational programs will promote healthy eating by teaching practical food skills and nutrition information. From hands-­‐‑on workshops and demonstrations, to providing low-­‐‑
cost space for our members to explore and support their own food needs, Square Root will develop creative, fun, and supportive activities and experiences that promote learning and leadership among participants, and empower them to choose, plan and cook healthy affordable meals no matter what their circumstances. How we’ll fund it: We will use a variety of grants and government funding to begin reaching out to East Gainesville stakeholders and civic groups to create a strategic plan of action. Job opportunities will develop as membership in the center increases and co-­‐‑packing expands, providing the Center the income and demand to hire additional people. Summary The Square Root Community Food Center will be a place where local economy, local community, and local food converge. We will provide the infrastructure and staff support and leverage the knowledge and relationships of our team to develop a center that is focused on securing our community food security. The center will house a commercial kitchen, cold and dry food storage, warehousing, community event and workshop space, garden space, and will offer logistical, financial, and capacity-­‐‑building support for farmers and food-­‐‑based businesses. We will provide a fun, creative, and educational space for individuals and community organizations to connect with their food system. Finally, we will collaborate with others to ensure that we are working at the forefront of diversity, justice, and cultural competence.