Plan, Produce and Profit Workshop Series
With the recent consumer focus on locally-grown foods, many farmers and food entrepreneurs are trying to expand their markets by creating and selling commercially processed food. Thanks to a grant from the Southern Risk Management Education Center, the NALC is working with the University of Arkansas Food Innovation Center, which is hosting a series of three workshops in Fayetteville, AR during the spring of 2015. The Food Innovation Center is a fully-equipped service center for food product development and processing and is part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. It provides assistance to small- and mid-size agricultural producers and entrepreneurs to facilitate the utilization of specialty crops for value-added products in local food systems.
Those attending the first and second workshops will explore the process of taking a product from concept to the commercial market as well as the fundamentals of starting a food processing business. Participants in the third workshop will be selected on a competitive basis from previous workshop attendees and will receive assistance from the personnel and use of the facilities at Arkansas Food Innovation Center in commercializing their product. Select participants will be given further assistance to develop and implement value-added food production and serve as case studies for developing local food systems.
* Information on registering for Workshops 2 and 3 will be provided at Workshop 1 and posted at a future date.Workshop 1 – January 29 or 31 – To register, click here
Workshop 2 – February 21*
Workshop 3 – April – June*
For more information contact Dr. Renee Threlfall, Research Scientist, University of Arkansas.