Food System Development/Consulting
Most of what we do at Red Tomato is aimed at learning and testing in the marketplace, practical, real-world buying, selling and marketing, responding to unique opportunities, relationships, and situations, to find strategies that help farmers build a sustainable livelihood. We aim to share what we learn through collaboration in various networks and working groups, consulting, and presentations at conferences and workshops. We call this our Food System Development work.
Our current Food System Development work includes:
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives: Value-added Produce and Branding Project
Red Tomato, the Federation of Southern Cooperative (FSC), and the Southwest Georgia Project (SGP) are building on an eight-year partnership to develop value-added products and an FSC brand for a southeast regional market. The goal is to increase FSC family farm income, and maintain ownership of farmland in the African-American community. Our earlier collaboration focused on marketing watermelons grown by FSC members into the Northeast market. Currently, we are working with the IPM Institute of North America to identify pilot crops and varieties, train growers, laying the groundwork for development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) protocols, and improve harvest and post-harvest handling and logistics.
• Kellogg: Boston Collaborative Food and Fitness Initiative (BCFF)
Red Tomato has been involved in the planning and leadership of this ten-year Kellogg-funded initiative, focused on assisting with one of the Initiative’s main goals, to make local, healthy food widely accessible and affordable for low-income Boston residents. We’re helping to identify community resources and additional funding sources; and assessing successful urban school, healthcare, and neighborhood retail food distribution approaches.
• WINROCK: Indicators Project
The project goal is to develop indicators used by diverse stakeholders to catalyze change and to measure progress towards food systems that are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.
• University of Wisconsin: Value Chain Project
Red Tomato is the subject of a case study by Steve Stevenson of the University of Wisconsin. The research looks at whether mid-scale, values-based food supply chains (value chains) can provide increased economic prosperity for farms and ranches that are too small to compete successfully in global agricultural commodity markets, yet too big or otherwise not positioned to directly market food products to local consumers.
Our past Food System Development work includes:
2006 - 2007
• Portland Downtown District: Redevelopment Plan for a New Public Market
Red Tomato worked with Community Heritage Partners, the Local Economy Center, and the Maine Department of Agriculture to explore the potential of a new public market in Portland, Maine following the closing of Portland’s Public Market in 2006. We developed marketing and merchandising recommendations to strengthen the four core vendors and lay the framework for a new public market district in the streets around their site.
2005 - 2006
• AGROFAIR: USA Fair Trade Banana Business Development
Red Tomato did a feasibility study and business plan for the entry of a new fair trade tropical fruit company into the U.S. market. In April of 2006, Red Tomato, AgroFair and Equal Exchange launched the new fair trade tropical fruit company, OKE USA. The first container of fair trade bananas was imported into the U.S. market in August of 2006, all sourced from AgroFair’s member cooperatives. AgroFair and Oké USA are unique, as they are majority owned by their small farm and cooperative growers in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
• SEMAP: Collaborative Organizational Sustainability Project
A collaborative project in which Red Tomato served as a consultant to SEMAP (Southeastern Massachusetts Agricultural Partnership) to help it clarify its organizational marketing strategy and Buy Local Campaign. Through this project, SEMAP developed its marketing/buy local strategy and Buy Local Campaign message.
2004 - 2005
• Chicago Community Funders Network: Illinois Food System Study
A Red Tomato report on how to accelerate the growth of sustainable agriculture in Illinois. It’s a bold vision that seeks to accelerate the pace of sustainable agriculture in rural areas and promote high-tech urban agriculture. It was completed in July 2004 with the Illinois Food and Community Funders Group, a unique and visionary collaborative of funders. The report is available as a pdf: Feeding Ourselves: Strategies for a New Illinois Food System
• USDA: Local Processed Lettuce Business Feasibility Study
Seventy percent of lettuce eaten in the U.S. comes in a plastic bag from California. Could this product be grown in New England? At the end of this study, Red Tomato piloted on-farm bagged romaine hearts with Pleasant Valley Gardens (PVG), a small Massachusetts family farm. As a result of the pilot, PVG and Red Tomato have developed a packaged romaine hearts program.
• Equal Exchange: Domestic Fair Trade Product Development
Red Tomato assessed and recommended possible products and North American small farm and cooperative sources for a new line of products for the fair trade coffee company, Equal Exchange (EE). Based on Red Tomato’s recommendations, Equal Exchange has developed a line of domestic fair trade products, starting with healthy snacks. National distribution of these products began in 2006.
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