NCGT Monthly Project Update

In This Issue:

Call for Applications: Local Food Supply Chain Apprenticeship MENTORS for Summer 2016

Upcoming Events: GAPS Workshops; Workshops and Events at NC Choices' Carolina Meat Conference and CFSA's Sustainable Agriculture Conference

MDI Food Show Features Local Produce

NCGT Supports NC Catch Groups

Call for Applications: Local Food Supply Chain Apprenticeship MENTORS for Summer 2016
If you are an NCGT partner and would like to host a Local Food Supply Chain Apprentice next summer, please submit this online application by October 15. For questions or more information, please contact NCGT Project and Research Coordinator Rebecca Dunning.

Upcoming Events
October 12-13: NCGT-sponsored sessions at the Carolina Meat Conference, Winston-Salem NC November 6-8: NCGT-sponsored sessions and events at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's Sustainable Agriculture Conference, Durham NC October - December: Fresh Produce Good Agricultural Practices Workshop Series, Burnsville, Lumberton, Louisburg, and Mills River NC

About NCGT

GOAL | Bring more locally-grown foods - produce, meat, dairy, and seafood - into mainstream retail and food service supply chains, thus enhancing food security by increasing access to local foods and by strengthening the economics of small to mid-sized farm and fishing operations.

STRATEGY | Identify the most promising solutions by which local production and associated value-added activities can enter local retail and food service markets, pilot these solutions in North Carolina, and evaluate and report the results for the benefit of other states and regions.

September 30, 2015

Greetings all,

Thanks for reading our monthly newsletter and please let us know what you think!

Sincerely,

The NCGT Management Team

MDI Food Show Features Local Produce

NC Growing Together partner Merchants Distributors Inc. - sister company to Lowes Foods - held its seasonal food show on August 18-19, 2015, with a special focus on local produce. Based in Hickory, NC, MDI is a grocery wholesale distributor that serves over 600 retail food stores in 11 states. The purpose of its food show - held in January, April, and August of each year - is to showcase the thousands of food items available for purchase by attending retail store owners, operators, managers, department heads, and merchandisers.

Mike Burris, who spent 27 years as MDI's Director of Produce, invited NCGT representatives, local growers, and extension agents to attend the show. "The goal was to introduce them to MDI and how we do business with our customers," he says. Now charged with increasing the amount of locally-grown produce distributed by MDI, Burris travels the state building relationships with extension agents and local producers. He's been to 52 of the state's 100 counties and plans to visit the remaining counties in the next 6 months.

Danelle Cutting, an NC A&T Horticulture and Local Food Agent in Rowan County, was one of the extension agents who attended the show. Cutting and 7 other agents from neighboring counties hosted their own booth - complete with products from their local producers - to "showcase our area," she explains. "We made some really good contacts," says Cutting. Now, the same group of 7 agents, who frequently work together to promote local foods in their region, is planning to bring a group of about 25 of their producers to tour MDI's warehouse in late October.

For more information on MDI's local produce initiative, contact Mike Burris: mburris@merchantsdistributors.com.

NCGT Supports NC Catch Groups

NC Growing Together is supporting efforts to promote local seafood in North Carolina. NCGT support is helping project partner NC Catch create two brochures designed to help consumers find local seafood in fresh seafood markets, grocery stores, stands, and farmers' markets across the state. The brochures will be distributed at the NC Seafood Festival in Morehead City, the State Fair in Raleigh, and other fall outreach events. The brochures will also be available on the NC Catch website at nccatch.org.

NC Catch, in partnership with the seafood industry, local Catch groups (Brunswick Catch, Carteret Catch, Outer Banks Catch, and Ocracoke Fresh), the NC Department of Agriculture and other organizations, works to strengthen the North Carolina seafood economy through promotion and education. NC Catch is also debuting a new "Real Local Seafood" label to help consumers identify local seafood in the marketplace.

Says Ann Simpson, NC Catch Interim Director, "NC Catch is a relatively new organization, and we appreciate tremendously the supply chain expertise and assistance that is available to us through the NCGT project. NCGT has great contacts and broad knowledge of how small farming and fishing communities can tie into profitable, larger markets throughout North Carolina."

For the last two years, NCGT has also organized wholesale buyer panel discussions and tours as part of the annual NC Catch Summit. In 2014 the panel featured Lowes Foods and MDI, and in 2015 it featured Pate Dawson-Southern Foods.

The NC Seafood Festival is October 2-4 in Morehead City.

Information and resources about North Carolina seafood can be found on the Research page of the NCGT website.

Project Contact Information

Rebecca Dunning, NCGT Project and Research Coordinator, rebecca_dunning@ncsu.edu, 919-389-2220

Nancy Creamer, Director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, NC State University; and Project Director, NC Growing Together, nancy_creamer@ncsu.edu, 919-515-9447

Michelle Schroeder-Moreno, NCGT Academic Coordinator, michelle_schroeder@ncsu.edu, 919-513-0085

Joanna Lelekacs, NCGT Extension and Training Coordinator, joanna_lelekacs@ncsu.edu, 919-244-5269

John Day, NCGT Military Partnership Coordinator, john_day@ncsu.edu, 704-785-6670

Krista Morgan, Locally Grown Accounts Representative, Lowes Foods; and Lowes Foods Liaison, NC Growing Together, krista.morgan@lowesfoods.com, 336-775-3218 ext. 53218

Patricia Tripp, NCGT Produce Supply Chain Development Liaison, trish@artisanfoodsolutions.com, 336-458-6980

JJ Richardson, NCGT Website and Communications Coordinator, jj_richardson@ncsu.edu, 919-889-8219

This project is supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grant no. 2013-68004-20363 of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

� 2013-2015 NC Growing Together