Kellogg Meeting Notes: Good Food, Good Business

I’m attending the Kellogg Food and Society Conference outside of Phoenix, which is notable in a couple of ways. The meeting gathers about 550 leaders from the non-profit world - everybody from policy wonks working on the Farm Bill to those working with farmworkers, in urban community gardens, on immigration or with inner city healthy food initiatives.

Secondly, it’s being held at the luxurious Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, a complex in the middle of the Gila River Indian Community which is actually owned by Indian tribes. The upscale nature of the place is certainly jarring for non-profits more accustomed to pinching pennies (Kellogg is picking up the expenses). But notably, the entire place was designed with Indian themes - artwork, bedspreads, even the architecture - and it provides a lot of jobs at all levels to the local Pima and Maricopa tribes.

Unlike the focus of much of my past work, the people at the conference are coming at things from the not-for-profit angle. Curiously, though, I’ve been engaged workshops where the overt theme was business - how do you grow local food? How do you bring more food to people? What’s needed in distribution? What type of ventures can make this happen? There’s a recognition that business can do this, but it’s business incubated or formed by non-profits for clear social goals.

Given the discussion, it’s clear these people would benefit from engaged business people on their boards, as advisers, if they’re not there already. In the food world, at least the organic wing of it, there are many people who have dealt with the same issues, who have gone from small to big, who have done so with clear missions. While those businesses might not always have a social component, the veterans of those paths could offer tools and strategies to get the business right -- so that it provides a solid foundation for the social goals these non-profits want to pursue.

It’s also clear from the discussions I’m having that the food movement is out-growing the farmer direct models that have been extolled for so long (farmers’ markets, CSAs). The new emphasis is on wholesale models that are necessary to bring more food to places where people actually shop - like supermarkets. That’s the next wave. But I will be interested to see how non-profits play a role in tackling this scaling issue, or whether they will be a footnote among the efforts of profit-minded entrepreneurs.

I would also note that the profit-based companies involved in the food world have largely sidestepped social justice issues. Environment, animal rights (to a degree), worker participation (to a degree), fair prices for farmers (to a degree) find a place, but social justice and affordability don’t hold an equal place at the table. That is, for people on the bottom income rungs. What businesses are starting grocery stores in inner city low-income areas - those food deserts we hear about so often? Can it be done? Or is the food bank, or government-led effort the only solution? I mean, the model exists for the unhealthy kind of store in these neighborhoods - liquor and convenience stores. Why can’t there be a healthy store model? Or maybe I just don’t know about ones that exist.

Maybe that would be a source of non-profit/for-profit partnerships going ahead, much like my impression of the economic development provided by this resort. It’s transforming the community (as one of several economic ventures) creating a social outcome but with the tools and methods of business.

- Samuel Fromartz

Comments

[Rodney North]

You're definitely on to something here - and I say that as an employee-owner and board member of one of those organic, Fair Trade, for-profit businesses that you allude to. (www.equalexchange.coop)

We regularly conduct business with not only conventional businesses like distributors and grocery chains but many other entities across the spectrum: small and large farmer co-ops in the US and 19 other countries, consumer co-ops, multi-stakeholder for-profit alternative businesses like Fair Trade banana business Oké USA and Liberation Foods (UK-based), non-profit food operations like Red Tomato, non-profit faith-based groups like the Presbyterian Hunger Project and Lutheran World Relief, and many non-profit advocacy organizations.

So there might be more happening across the For-Profit/Non-Profit line than you realize. And when you consider the large role played by cooperatives there really is a whole spectrum of players and relationships between Wall St. on one end and church food pantry on the other.

As for bringing change and some good organic food to poor urban neighborhoods I really like the example the People's Grocery in Oakland - ww.peoplesgrocery.org/ - and also our local Harvest Co-op Markets here in Boston & Cambridge, Mass.

[Samuel Fromartz]

Rodney, thanks for the great example. I am aware of People's Grocery - they are here at the conference. I didn't mean to paint things black and white but wanted to put out a challenge as well as information posting to find out more about the kind of linkages you're talking about.

[Mark Powell]

Sam, do you mean to say that we non-profits don't have all the answers? We often think we do have all the answers, even when we're campaigning to get businesses to change.

Seriously, I've been to similar conferences, and I think you're right in suggesting that non-profits can learn from businesses. We just need to drop the blinders that have us being dogmatically skeptical of those seeking to make a profit.

[Organic George]

I do take exception to your comments:

"I would also note that the profit-based companies involved in the food world have largely sidestepped social justice issues. Environment, animal rights (to a degree), worker participation (to a degree), fair prices for farmers (to a degree) find a place, but social justice and affordability don’t hold an equal place at the table. That is, for people on the bottom income rungs"

Having had the opportunity to sit in endless meetings, starting in the 80's, the organic community did start to address these issues above. We do not have all the answers but we knew that we had to create a market for our products first, before we could make other social changes. And we did on many levels but not to the degree that those in the non-profit world would prefer.

Organics is such a success that everyone and their cousins, wants to tack on their favorite social issue to our wagon. Organics is not the end and be all of social reforms. We are first and foremost a farming and marketing movement to sell and support organics as a way to feed people and heal the earth. Which is not a bad social & environmental program in and of itself.

[Samuel Fromartz]

George, Thanks for your comments. I don't mean to minimize or diminish the success of the organic food industry against enormous odds. You built an alternative model and have succeeded.

My question was whether there was a business case to be made (aside from a social one) in extending the model into the lower end of the income spectrum. You can look at it as helping poor people or on the flip side reaching an untapped market. No for-profit entrepreneur that I know of has tried to tackle that market. But as I said, maybe I'm just unaware. And, as Rodney mentioned above, the sum of the parts by various companies, may equal the whole.

Maybe this is a red herring at a time of dramatically rising food costs where people are starting to make tough trade offs. I think the issue of getting any affordable food - regardless of what type of food - may be the more burning issue ahead, but it may also present a chance to advocate for getting good value with the right kinds of healthy food choices.