Overview of Case Studies

Below, we briefly introduce our 24 case studies through the best known part of their business. Although we’ve provided the list below to give readers an at-a-glance overview, we should note many of our CFEs actually have multiple businesses and occupy multiple links on the supply chain.

Primary Food Producers and Harvesters: 

• Anna Marie Seafood is a sole-owner limited liability corporation based in Dulac, Louisiana, whose founder, Lance Nacio, has developed methods for freezing shrimp onboard his ship and markets his shrimp directly to retailers across the country.

• Kasinthula Cane Growers Limited is a limited liability company in Malawi, formed through a public-private partnership and owned by a smallholder farmers’ trust, which helps 280 farmers grow and sell sugarcane at fair trade prices.

• Kuapa Kokoo, Ghana’s largest producer cooperative, represents 45,000 cocoa farmers and helps them produce and sell raw cocoa. The farmers also co-own the Divine Chocolate Company, which markets products that incorporate Kuapa Kokoo’s cocoa.

• Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative Limited enables three dozen women farmers in Nepal to profitably sell organic fruits and vegetables for markets in Kathmandu.

• Swanton Berry Farm is a for-profit corporation in Davenport, California, with a fully unionized workforce that has demonstrated how to grow organic strawberries, manufacture value added jams and pies, and sell them directly to the public.

Value-Added Food Production: 

• The Ajddigue Women’s Argan Cooperative helps 60 women in Morocco extract oil from native argan trees, and then sell oil based food and cosmetic products to buyers worldwide at fair trade prices.

• Akiwenzie’s Fish is a Native American, family run business in Cape Croker, Canada, that catches, smokes, and sells directly high quality fish to farmers markets in Toronto.

• Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools (CROPP), better known as Organic Valley and Organic Prairie, has become one of the largest and most influential producer cooperatives for marketing organics in North America, representing 1,300 farmers who are involved primarily in dairy but also in eggs, soy products, orange juice, fruits, vegetables, and meat.

• Lorentz Meat, based in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, is a multi species meat processing plant that has demonstrated the viability of a “mid scale” company in linking small meat producers with larger markets. It also processes meats for larger companies including CROPP.

• The Mavrovic Companies have popularized local organic bread and meats in Croatia through its organic farms, a bakery, a marketing apparatus, and a research center.

• Sunstar Overseas Limited, in India, has developed certified rice products, including conventional and organic basmati, and has partnered with thousands of small scale farmers in northern India in fair trade agreements.
  
  

Food Product Aggregation and Distribution: 

• Appalachian Harvest Network, an entrepreneurial nonprofit program based in Abingdon, Virginia, has helped nearly 70 former tobacco farmers transition to growing organic fruits and vegetables. It provides them with the capacity to sell to regional supermarkets and other buyers.

• Indian Springs Farmers Association is a producer cooperative that enables three dozen primarily African American farmers from rural Mississippi to wash, aggregate, and package fresh fruits and vegetables, and then truck them to markets across the United States.

• The National Onion Growers’ Cooperative Marketing Association (NOGROCOMA) in the Philippines helps its 200 members market their onions domestically, and imports and sells onions from neighboring countries to provide added income to members.

• The Oklahoma Food Cooperative is an Internet based producer and consumer cooperative in the state of Oklahoma, run by a small part time staff and an army of volunteers. It links buyers and producers throughout the state and mobilizes delivery of thousands of products to 38 sites one day each month. 

Food Retailers: 

• Cargills (Ceylon) PLC, founded in 1844, is best known as a chain of 138 supermarkets in Sri Lanka (though it also includes processing facilities and restaurants) that buys raw foodstuffs from 10,000 smallholder farmers at fair trade prices.

• Greenmarket, an entrepreneurial nonprofit program in New York City, is the largest farmers market system in North America. It runs 49 market locations, many year round, and caters to low income residents using the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP (formerly the Food Stamp Program).

• Weaver Street Market is a 12,000 member worker and consumer cooperative near Research Triangle, North Carolina, which runs not only three grocery stores but also a commissary, bakery, and restaurant.

• Zingerman’s Community of Businesses is a network of for profits based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which includes a delicatessen, bakery, creamery, catering and events business, a mail order company, a coffee roastery, a restaurant, and a consulting business.

Restaurants: 

• Cabbages & Condoms is a chain of twelve for-profit restaurants and resorts in Thailand, all specializing in local cuisine and local food production, which are designed to finance the public health and environmental programs of the country’s oldest NGO.

• Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited has spread appreciation of local food throughout Zambia and internationally through its catering services, a restaurant, and training programs.

• The White Dog Café, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, features local and organic fare at moderate prices and has become ground zero for local food system development and buy-local movements across the United States.

Food Business Incubation:

• Fundación Paraguaya’s Financially Self-Sufficient Organic Farm School, based in a rural region of Villa Hayes, Paraguay, teaches CFE entrepreneurship to low-income high school students through local enterprises that defray the costs of running the school.

• The Intervale Center, based in Burlington, Vermont, is a nonprofit that has transformed an abandoned parcel of land into successful organic farms, value-added food businesses, local-food education programs, and a county-wide composting program.