Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Innovation Kitchens. Rural commercial kitchens form local food network


The Wisconsin State Journal just posted a good piece about a meeting we hosted today for our regional USDA Rural Development State Directors.

"A series of commercial kitchens designed to process locally grown food could dot a four-state region of the Midwest under plans being proposed by economic development leaders."

In the photo, left to right:

USDA Rural Development, Wisconsin State Director, Stan Gruszynski

USDA Rural Development, Illinois State Director, Colleen Callahan

Rick

USDA Rural Development, Iowa State Director, Bill Menner

"State directors from three U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development agencies were in Mineral Point Wednesday to tour the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen and discuss ways of expanding the kitchen to other communities in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota."

"The facilities, which typically employ workers with developmental disabilities, would be run independently but work together sharing ideas, processes and marketing."

"The opportunity to make jobs and entrepreneurial capacity out of those facilities is huge," Terrien said. "We don't want to compete with these folks. We want to cooperate."

Many thanks to our regional friends in USDA Rural Development for a great visit!


Wisconsin State Journal Article by Barry Adams.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awsome site ! I will store it in my favorites. thanksss !

Dave Hutton said...

Really enjoyed reading about Innovative Kitchens. Would like to link up to hear more about it and how we might make this work up here in Canada. It sounds like a terrific project for our Ag Society to undertake and intro to our community and share with other societies. I'd like you permission to share this with my connections.
Regards,
Dave