News release follows. Blue Ridge Food Ventures is a real success story for Asheville and WNC:
The economy may be weak but revenue-building opportunities for farmers, food businesses, and natural products entrepreneurs are growing stronger than ever at Blue Ridge Food Ventures, thanks to grants awarded by the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission (NCTTF) and the Golden LEAF Foundation.
An initiative of AdvantageWest Economic Development Group and the N.C. Department of Agriculture, Blue Ridge Food Ventures is a shared-use commercial kitchen and food processing facility, commonly known as a “kitchen incubator.” Its main objective is to provide services to those wishing to start or grow small businesses in the food industry and to local farmers who want to add value to their products through processing in an FDA-inspected kitchen.
With grants totaling more than $200,000 – $136,500 from NCTTF and $75,000 from Golden LEAF – Blue Ridge Food Ventures will expand its Farm Outreach Program, which helps farmers develop value-added products to complement direct marketing of fresh produce at area tailgate markets. Examples of value-added products are tomato juice, dried mushrooms, and strawberry jam – all items that can processed and packaged at Blue Ridge Food Ventures with locally grown produce and sold year-round, versus marketing only the raw produce during the limited harvest season.
Along with expanded office and storage space at the facility, currently 11,000 square feet located on the AB Tech Enka campus, the grant monies will increase the hours and expand the geographic reach of the Farm Outreach Program team. The project manager, now expanded to a full-time position, works with farm families to understand their goals, needs and constraints related to developing and marketing value-added products. Other team members help the farmers develop and test recipes and design labels and packaging for the new products.
The funding will also be used to:
Develop and promote a branding and marketing plan for “Made at Food Ventures” products.
Implement a wintertime Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that will supply locally grown produce as value-added frozen products during winter months when no other local food is available.Increase marketing activities for items produced at Blue Ridge Food Ventures and the other food incubators in the region by creating retail displays in various locations in Western North Carolina where products would be available for purchase directly by the public.
These economic development initiatives will be directed at farmers and food entrepreneurs in the 23 westernmost counties of North Carolina, the area served by AdvantageWest. More information on the wintertime CSA, to which members of the public can subscribe and get locally grown produce, packed and frozen at its peak, will be announced in the coming weeks.
Since it began operations in 2005, Blue Ridge Food Ventures has helped to incubate more than 100 food businesses whose reported sales exceed $1.8 million, supporting at least 20 full-time and 50 part-time jobs. Currently, 60 businesses operate out of the facility on regular or seasonal schedules – and not just food growers. In partnership with the BioBusiness Center at AB Tech, Blue Ridge Food Ventures also provides equipment, space and training to companies that process value-added natural products such as ginseng and goldenseal at the facility.
For more information about Blue Ridge Food Ventures, call (828) 348-0128 or visit www.blueridgefoodventures.org.