Project Title:  Southeast Wisconsin Farm and Food Network Round 1 (2003) / Round 4 (2004)       

Project Leader (s):  Rose Skora

Project Collaborators:  Peg Reedy, Walworth County UWEX, Town and Country RC and D, Michael Fields Agriculture Institute, Slow Food Wisconsin SE

Project Category: Business Development    

Situation: The close proximity to 2 major cities (Milwaukee and Chicago) and urban pressure is making it necessary for farmers in Southeast Wisconsin to seek out more economically viable alternatives and markets for their products.  The objective of this project is to determine if a coop model can be a viable option for farmers in Southeast Wisconsin.

Response:  Although the original goal when starting this project was to develop a cooperative, as the partners who were involved in this project changed and the committee spent too much time going in circles, the focus of this project changed.  The first thing we did after spending several months unable to move forward was to spend time doing strategic planning.  As a result of the strategic plan, our group was able to decide on mutual goals and priorities. 

We decided to survey restaurants, grocery stores, schools and other institutional buyers in a 9 county area to determine if there was significant interest in buying directly from farmers.  Upon determining that there was, we then surveyed farmers to determine their interest in selling directly to institutions.  Now that we understand that there is enough interest on both sides, we are using the money we received from the second round of funding to hire a project coordinator who will connect farmers and chefs.  We decided to focus on chefs because restaurants seem to have the least amount of red tape that would limit their ability to begin buying from farmers as soon as possible.  This will be a short-term pilot project that will begin in Walworth County and move to Kenosha and Racine counties.  The goal of the committee is to look for additional funding for the project while the pilot project is occurring.

Results:  Currently, our results are more in the form of being able to demonstrate that there is indeed an interest on both the buyer and supplier side to make it worthwhile to spend time and money working to connect farmers with institutional buyers.  Included are the results from the buyers’ survey.