Small to medium businesses involved in Ag-tourism, farm direct marketing, farmers markets and ventures with specialty retailers and food service operators have one thing in common – they are an integral part of the flourishing local market industry.

 What’s driving this demand for local food? The top three sited reasons: in part it’s the aspects of freshness, support of the local economy and sustaining local agriculture industry. However, not all consumers buy local. Some say they would like too, but it is not available or they don’t know how to identify the local food products. The biggest purchasing barriers are sourcing and convenience. It is estimated that at least 60% of consumers look to their supermarket for local.

 
Making it easier for these consumers to purchase local is an opportunity for producers, processors and their customers. Collaborating to address these barriers and arrive at solutions that make it easier for consumers to purchase local is one strategy. Customer Focused Collaboration is a program that will showcase this strategy and how to provide value for your customers and ultimately the consumer.
 
During the program participants will not only have time to learn about managing a value chain strategy, but guest speakers Bill Dover and Terry Ackerman will share their years of experience.
Bill Dover is president of Dover Hospitality Consulting, Inc. and a founding Principal of FS STRATEGY. Bill specializes in the hospitality and agri-food industries, both domestically and internationally. FS STRATEGY assists growers and food and beverage processors in identifying specific food product solutions that solve foodservice operator and distributor challenges and work with all links in the supply chain to “pull” the solutions through the system to develop value chain systems.

 

Terry Ackerman, gained international senior management experience through marketing, sales, business development, product licensing, manufacturing and processing, finance, research and development, and strategic and operations planning with multi-national companies such as Levi Strauss International, Domtex International, Converse (Nike) International, and Saputo.   His most recent senior management experience was with Organic Meadow Inc., the largest organic dairy operation in Canada. One of the fastest growing and most profitable value added food companies in the country