Rural communities offer comparatively few opportunities for the emergence and/or growth of business. The local market often is too small, and larger markets are too distant. However, these communities frequently maintain traditional crafts and ethic foods that are appealing to urban markets. This study will examine the feasibility of linking rural and urban food markets through the development of a rural, food incubator kitchen for local entrepreneurs. Incubator would help entrepreneurs enhance product shelf-life, improve quality control, address complex regulation, and reduce production start-up costs. The feasibility study will examine the components necessary to evaluate the applicability of the incubator model to specialty food processing in areas where such manufacturing does not currently exist.
Anticipated Results:Phase I will outline and develop the conceptual model necessary for testing the feasibility of a specialty food processing incubator. The model will address site selection, product selection, willingness and availability of producers and production sites, product distribution and product marketing strategy; Community factors researched in Phase I include labor pool, financial and physical resources, willingness and economic impact evaluation.==This research will produce a conceptual model easily adapted to geographic areas wishing to foster specialty processing business where it currently does not exist. The model could be potentially expanded to include the gift and floral manufacturing sectors as well as food.
