Utah Farm and Food Business Program

so good afternoon everyone I'm Karen Allen um some of you may have worked with me in the past on value added products or if you had questions about the safety of processed foods and there have been some new developments that we want to give you an update on um provide a little bit of background about what's going on with these programs both Nationwide regionally and then also within Utah and then give you some resources for how you can actually find more information moving ahead into the future

once these programs are uh fully established and up and running so in 2022 the USDA Agricultural Marketing service announced that there was a competitive program to establish a minimum of six Regional Food business centers throughout the country and these were specifically designed to be a able to provide support to small and midsized Farm and Food businesses so they were established to support a more resilient diverse and competitive food system and really provide some access to some of those b

usinesses that had traditionally had a harder time accessing Assistance or had maybe been overlooked they will support producers by providing localized assistance within your community as much as possible they will also provide technical assistance that is needed by small businesses to access new markets and resources and they will assist small and midsize producers as I mentioned in overcoming barriers to Market access so they're going to do this in three ways they'll specifically focus on coor

dination between different centers technical assistance and then the capacity building which will we talk a little bit more about as well so in May of 2023 the USDA announced the 12 final Regional centers there's one the national enter tribal Food business center that is a nationwide Center the other 11 represent specific regions as you can see from this map Utah will be part of the Southwest Regional Center that is based at the University of California and one of the things that they really wan

t to promote is that resources created through one Center can be shared across all centers so that we can really maximize that effort and share good practices in how to best help our Farm and Food businesses so the Southwest Regional food Business Center is California Nevada Arizona and Utah and their three main ways that they will focus on help helping the uh small businesses um they will serve as the regional hub for coordination and communication across these three or sorry these four states

they will work with all of the federal and state agencies within each state as well they'll focus on Outreach expansion and supportive partnership and networks um Provide support for other initiatives and knowledge sharing of relevant resources within the region these four states and also across the other Regional Food business centers the technical assistance piece uh will be provided directly to those small and midsized Farm and Food businesses this includes producers processors Distributors a

nd then any other related food businesses that are within that supply chain the food Business Center will serve as a hub for technical assistance that will support various food and farm business needs as well as connect producers to other entities within that supply chain the last piece is the capacity building and this is probably the part that everyone when this program was first announced was the most excited about um we are still waiting to find out logistically how this is going to work wit

hin our region but I want to give you at least a little bit of background on that through the Southwest Regional food Business Center there will be financial assistance in the form of business Builder sub Awards of up to $100,000 to support projects focused on Regional needs and also to Target businesses that are working towards expansion um other kinds of investment there really are not as many limits on these sub Awards as there are in some of the other Assistance programs that we see this fun

ding could be used to support staff um hire new employees it can be used for business planning activities for example a feasibility study or developing a business plan um software implementation for example if you are concerned about traceability if you're creating a food product and you're required to meet that new traceability standard that the FDA has been put in place this could be used to support software or other systems that can help with that also the purchase of special equipment whethe

r that be to promote food safety um to increase processing capacity or to expand a packaging line and then also value chain coordination so Utah is part of this Southwest Regional Center there are two key partners that are working with this group at UC Davis that is Utah State University extension um the three main faculty members involved there are myself Karen Allen kinda Curtis and Ruby Ward we will also be hiring four additional positions to provide uh increased access to assistance for our

Utah Farm and Food businesses there will be a project coordinator that will be responsible for coordinating between USU and also the Utah Department of Agriculture and food and then also coordinating up with the Southwest Regional Center and we will be hiring three technical assistants that will be uh housed throughout the state and I'll provide a little more information on that in the next Slide the Utah Department of Agriculture and food their team consists of Carolyn Hargraves Allison Ross an

d Adriana Franco now all six of us have signed up to be on work groups through the southwestern Center uh to focus more on some of those issues like the capacity building the technical assist assistance the capacity building communication and coordination and we are still in the process of working through how all of that is going to work within our region there needs to be some consistency between the states we don't want different states going off in completely different directions but they're

also needs to be enough flexibility that allows us within each state to really be respons responsive to those needs that we see in our local areas um and be able to provide resources and assistance specifically focused on those needs so as part of this the Utah Department of agen food will also be hiring a new position that is a regulatory navigation specialist um that can help especially with some of those really tricky situations where it may not be immediately clear which set of regulations a

business business needs to follow depending on their size who they're going to be selling to um and how that business is structured so this will be a huge help for Utah for some of these smaller entrepreneurs who have some of these questions and we've struggled in the past to find a clear so let's loop back around on the technical assistance this is roughly where we expect their uh regions how we expect those to be divided this is potentially going to change as we move forward with actually hir

ing new staff but we will have someone representing the northern the southwestern and the Eastern regions of Utah where exactly each of these technical assistance will be physically housed is still open for negotiation we want to make sure that we're able to be flexible and provide the best assistance possible by hiring the best candidates in each of these three general areas so for example if we identify someone in price who would make a great technical assistant and is really going to be able

to fulfill that mission then for the Eastern Utah region that person would be housed in price we'll do our best to make sure we can accommodate that either at an extension office uh potentially A Small Business Development Center or some other university space that we can use if we find the best person in Moab then we will do our best to make sure that that person is housed in Moab the technical assistant will be traveling through their region and we will be providing more information once we ha

ve these positions filled in terms of a schedule so that people in different counties within that region aren't going to be expected to travel to the office where that person is primarily located but rather they will be coming out into the community so you would know there would be certain days or a week when that person would be in your area more locally these technical assistants will serve as the direct contacts those first initial contacts for our Farm and Food businesses that have questions

about expansion business plans access to markets um moving into value added processing or any of those kinds of questions they can provide a lot of those answers um even some of the basic food safety answers or help for example getting you started on a business plan and then they can also refer you to other resources if it is something that requires additional expertise or additional time for example uh one of the technical assistants may be able to help you start on a business plan but then we

'll refer you to a Small Business Development Center or other business assistance groups to find finze that and really flush it out so where we are now in the southwestern Regional Center um as I mentioned they have set up work groups to address the communication and collaboration efforts make sure we are communicating and collaborating within our region these four states as well as outside there's another work group specifically for those business Builder Awards and part of what they are lookin

g at is what that application process will look like up to $100,000 can be awarded that is over the life of this program so this program this funding runs through 2028 it might be that some businesses get $100,000 but it's divided over three or four different application rounds and the total is 100,000 there may be other businesses that there is a need for a much larger award upfront to get them started with expansion for example to purchase equipment hire in new staff and so there may be one si

ngle business Builder Award of $100,000 over the course of that program the amount of funding that is available through each of these Regional centers is not as much as we would like to see but it is still uh a very valuable source of funding that we are hoping we can help our Farm and Food businesses tap into in addition to some of those other programs that already exist whether they're through the state whether they're through a federal program like the USDA I know that there was some discussi

on of the different uh funding opportunities that exist at both the state and federal level at the in the first uh part of this day this conference today it's our hope that we will be able to offer grant writing workshops and assistance even if you end up not being eligible for or not funded through the business Builder program we still would be able to offer valuable assistance to help you create those proposals um maybe have a a group Workshop where uh several businesses could get together and

provide feedback on proposals so we do want to make sure that we are supporting those activities in any way that we can even if the ultimate funding source is not through the regional food Business Center program we will be looking at technical assistance needs and then also the evaluation strategy um how do we collect the information that we need from all of our Farm and Food businesses to report back up to the USDA so that this program has a higher chance of being funded in the future with ad

ditional rounds of funding currently only one of those work groups to my knowledge has met I know I am on the technical assistance and the communication work groups neither of those have met yet I know the business Builder awards has met um I'm not sure about the evaluation group we're meeting uh March 4th okay so these things should all be happening within the next month uh that we see all of these meeting to start those initial discussions the Leadership Council who are the the main contact pe

ople from each of those key partner organizations we will be meeting in May to really discuss as a a leadership group how we want to move forward how we want to keep things consistent between the states what issues we see that are specific to our states how we can all work together to make sure that everyone is benefiting as much as possible from the assistance that's provided so we'll have more um more information more updates through the summer into the fall let's talk now about where we are i

n Utah um USU and udaf are moving forward with looking at those new hires I am hoping that we can have everyone in place by the end of May I know Caroline told me that udaf is planning to have the regulatory navigation specialist position listed in March I am hoping that we will have our technical assistance and program coordinator positions listed in March as well um with that technical assistance we may end up in a situation where we only have one or two people in the state providing that assi

stance and they need to do a little bit of uh double duty pick up a little bit of extra area within the state until we can be fully staffed through this Center for now though there are other resources available um the frame guide books those are the fundamental resources for agricultural micro entrepreneurs there are guide books and workbooks that will take you through um starting a home-based food processing business if you are currently farming and growing crops and you want to just sell on a

small scale this can get you set up through the cottage food program or the uh H produced and home consumption Act there is also a food business online course that's under development that once that gets finalized and posted on the USU extension online course website that will be available and it will give you much more information on some of those Finance issues business plans uh overview of regulations some of those other considerations that you need to take into account before you start up an

actual processed food business part of your operations we are also currently conducting A needs assessment for Utah Farm and Food businesses now I mentioned that at the regional level we do need to coordinate and make sure that there's some consistency between what the individual State programs are doing but this needs assessment will really Drive our focus in Utah um so we can better identify where those place are that there is the most need and the ones that we can most readily and most easil

y and most thoroughly address first before we move on to some of the other areas where maybe there's additional curriculum that needs to be created or it's just going to take us longer to get to that you should all have received an email with the link to these needs assessments this morning with this there are two different I just wanted to stop you we also just put the needs assessment links in the chat so people can grab them right there perfect okay so there are two different surveys um there

is one that is a farmer grower Rancher survey that actually closes March 1st so next Friday if you complete that survey if you haven't already if you have thank you if you haven't already if you complete that survey you can then enter to be in uh to win one of two $500 gift cards the other survey is specific to our food processors so if you are not actively growing your own crops that then you are selling directly or processing you would take the food processor survey so the farmer grower surve

y is for those businesses that are in the primary business of growing crops even if you end up processing some of those into value added products you would still take the farmer grower survey the the food processor survey is for those businesses that are not involved in growing their own crops but are using purchased ingredients for example to create that processed food this survey is going to be open until April 1st and you can be entered to win one of one or sorry one $500 gift card will be aw

arded for that one so again look for those links in the email that were sent out and also those are available in the chat now so future updates we don't have a website we can direct you to right at this moment set up where everything related to the Utah Farm and Food business program is housed but we will be starting a food business list serve if you are interested in that please sign up on the Google form there will be a link posted to that on the conference page uh next to this presentation yo

u can also follow Regional events that are posted on the southwestern region food Business Center site that is swood biz.org um that link will also be put in the information uh the links and resources next to this presentation and you can look for National updates on the USDA Regional food Business Center site once we have our own site set up and we are up and running I'm sure there will be links posted through extension through the Diversified EG website also we will have a link on our Southwes

t Regional food Business Center site so you can access Utah specific programming directly from that site as well so I do want to take time for questions um very quickly I also want to share with you some of the information that you can find on the USDA Regional Food business Center site and our uh Western our Southwest Regional site this site gives you more information on the 12 finalists with links to each of those programs as well as the link to the National tribal Center that gives more infor

mation uh background on the program the funding levels that were awarded the kinds of things they looked for in making those awards from here I'm going to link through to the Southwest Regional Center this Center you can find out about the partners in Arizona California Nevada and Utah as well as under their events tab they have a list of upcoming conferences workshops um online programs in the southwest region um you can see there's our Urban and small farms conference listed there are also a l

ot of other virtual things in different states within our region that are coming up so this is a good place to look for any of those workshops or trainings or conferences that you may be interested in attending and again where a lot of them are virtual or at least in a hybrid format this is a great resource so that you can see what's going on in our region okay so questions so we had um one question come in why split um this project between udaf and USU it seems it would be easier to navigate if

there was a single source already difficult to figure out where to locate needed resources yes that is an excellent question so the way this project was set up through the USDA it required that there be partners from multiple disciplines or or for example Academia and government that there be that combination So within each state in our region there is an academic partner a government partner and then they want to also include a nonprofit partner in Utah we are still in the process of determini

ng how we select the right nonprofit partner to include in this um California and Arizona both have already identified a nonprofit partner Utah and Nevada are still working through that process the reason is because they wanted to make sure that everyone at our level is communicating with the right people within the state so that we are all aware of everything that is going on now within Utah the one main point of contact will be the food Business program this website will be housed through USU

extension and that will be where you start it doesn't matter if you first Contact for example the regulatory navigation specialist at udaf through that website or a technical assistant through that website they will be able to direct you to the right person that you need to talk to and this will be one place where all of those resources for Utah are located um one other thing that I do want to show you on the Southwest Regional site is if you go to the resources tab you can select here things sp

ecific to Utah and it gives a list of Utah specific programs we will have the link to the food Business Center Utah food Business Center program on this site once we have that up and running so I know that it's been frustrating in the past it feels like there's a lot of different places to start how do you find those resources this at least will give us one place for Utah but it will be listed along with some of these other programs so that you can find information for example on Organic certifi

cation specific to Utah and I I think that um we have had a lot more time um scheduled for this but I think that it's good to just have some time to just kind of have a discussion and so um Caroline and any others you know feel free to chime in and stuff but I think part of what you um you and both um udaf were in kind of envisioning for this is that we have these people that we're going to be hiring and so they will kind of be our Frontline people that should be within your communities or have

access to in your communities somewhere and that will give you a one point of contact and then through that they can make sure you get to wherever you you specifically need to go and then it may be that you then come back to that person for the next step and they can kind of guide you not just one time and forward you on to somebody else but really kind of guide you through the process as you go because it may be several different agencies that you need to work with before you're done with um ge

tting food satisfying food regulations and safety requirements yeah and actually we weren't even supposed to start this till 2:30 it was only supposed to go for a half hour so we started early but I think this gives us to answer any additional questions that anybody hases who are here this morning I know it can feel overwhelming seeing the number of grants that are available and then taking that first step with applying for them so I think one of the biggest things to be excited about this progr

am is once those new staff members are hired at since us at udaf we don't have a full-time grant writer on hand or someone who can always be there to help this will give us several points of contact across the state to do that direct you know kind of handholding and guiding um so our involvement is primarily that piece with helping people through regulations but it'll also help um Allison who presented earlier direct people to those who can give more guidance thank you and so I think I'm not see

ing any more questions oh sure yeah so we have uh the two different needs assessment surveys going one is primarily targeted towards agricultural uh food producers so those would be Farmers ranchers Growers the second one is uh for food makers and processors so so people not growing their own um their own ingredients their own their own crops um I can't go into a lot of detail but this there's a there's a two-pronged rationale for while we're doing this not only for this um new uh Food business

center but through some plans that uh USU College of a and applied sciences has looking into diversifying and and really um stepping up the resources and things available uh to food producers within Utah so so that's why we're kind of doing a comprehensive approach um you may have seen our emails multiple times mtip mentioned uh but we do want to get full input from as many of you as we can um so that um we can make informed decisions moving forward and and and those requesting funding at the st

ate level um and at the University level um know what it is what would be most helpful when they they make those ask for funding later on so that's about all I have to say about that unless you guys think there's something I I miss there yeah it's but this is really everybody's opportunity to really you know if they want some say into what they would like to see in these programs the needs assessment and filling out these surveys is really their Avenue to provide that because that's what we're l

ooking for really the point is to really get their input exactly um and then um my role within the center once the center is established is to help look at marketing projects so if that's something that you feel like you really want in terms of um you know if there are product prods that we don't have good marketing information on or you feel like consumers have changed their minds recently consumers Chang their minds a lot um I will be doing um several I believe two to three larger market asses

sments you know within the region every year so something to think about one of the other things we're hoping to have once we are able to physically carve out some space probably somewhere in the Salt Lake City area is to have some smaller pieces of demo equipment or Pilot scale equipment that we can actually use to help with product development let our businesses come in and try out a specific piece of equipment to see if it is something that they want to purchase for their own business for exp

ansion uh a larger version of that if we know the kinds of products that people are primarily interested in making we will be able to get equipment in that is more readily usable by more companies so the more feedback you can give us even on things you would like to do in the future or have thought about doing but aren't quite ready that will help us better equip this lab space where we can actually help with some of those kinds of processes we do have funding for probably four or five pieces of

smaller bench scale equipment that could be used as demos for some of these food processing activities and then there's another couple of questions that came in so redacre Center is an established nonprofit in Utah and has had a major impact on local food and egg policy I'm hopeful you would consider if they would be a good fit for the NP I can't remember what MP stands for um they might not be available but should be considered for the the nonprofit yes right Center is definitely on our radar

we're actually having a meeting next week at the regional level um with all of the lead Partners to discuss how best to identify those nonprofits that may be the best fit um I think some of the concern is if there is too much focus on promoting policy where it needs to be representing uh more broadly the food system in general and so we are actually going to develop kind of a an application or a a checklist that we could go through with some of those nonprofits and red aner Center is a great one

there are a couple of others that we had thought about in terms of involvement in the Utah piece so and and then there was also a question so any chance for funding um a commercial kitchen space for teaching demonstration in the Salt Lake area and so not just individual businesses and stuff is there a role for that with this project that is outside the scope of this project and the funding that we have um but as kinda kind of hinted at there are some larger discussions going on in terms of acti

vities that extension could be involved in related to food processing and and marketing with in the state and so I think there will be a lot more that we discuss over this next year um as some of those other there there are some behind the scenes discussions going on right but I think once those are finalized we'll be able to share a lot more information and and have a much deeper discussion about how best to do some of that kind of teaching demonstration type activity yeah because um I think an

d and I think it's fair to say that the needs assessment is really critical so having your input into what you want is very critical because we're going to use this not just for this project but also kind of it's going to help inform where um extension programs and house support should be for you know really to support the food system in Utah and that and I'm talking about the food system from kind of the farming activities up through food processing you know what I mean and Beyond so um that's

really kind of why we're talking about the food Cent this food Business Center but also kind of these programs in general because this really is you can't do one without the other and so it's part of multiple projects where will will there be labeling support for food projects or for food products sorry yes and there's already currently in Utah um you can contact me for questions on labeling um you can also contact Rebecca neelson at the Utah Department of Agri culture and food who is the state

labeling specialist and she can provide some feedback on food labels and if they meet those requirements and then kinda and Karen both there's been a question that's come in if you are extension Personnel or working for you know a government agency or a nonprofit or something else in support of working with agriculturists should you be filling out those needs assessment surveys or what should your role be in that well I don't want to speak for Karen here um she's in charge but uh no these survey

s that are out are not not for us an extension however um I see that we could probably do something like that or simply uh maybe collect some some input um on a on a less formal basis but um Karen and I'll will talk about that and and we'll get back to you and um yeah but really um I would really encourage everybody to um take those links um to those surveys and take the one that's appropriate for you for whatever you're involved in also if you um know of other others that you feel like um shoul

d also be taking those surveys feel free to forward those on to other people but just remember that the I producer survey is going to end March 1 so there's a short kind of timeline to get that one in and then the food Business Center um one ends I can't remember the end of March April one is that right April 1 yeah okay so and we will post those on the divers sag.org webbsite um next to this session but also maybe you know more on the main you know part and send try to send out something on tha

t too so I see a comment came in on the chat I hope Utah will be able to retain some autonomy despite its inclusion in the Southwest Regional Food business center with California I would hate to see Utah a lose funding and support due to aversion Andor avoidance of Utah style regulations and policies um re diversity equity and inclusion gender identity politics immigration ethnic quotas and other programs if consistency within the Southwest Regional food Business Center is a key goal what are th

e risks to Utah agriculture I'd like to assure you that like when we have these meetings with the southwest region um it's a really great opportunity for us to advocate for Utah's needs I know a lot of people are excited about that RSSI the resilient Food Systems infrastructure Grant but there's a lot of frustration that it doesn't include meat projects when that's such a large portion of our state's agriculture um so it it allows us to advocate for some of that um capacity building gr funding c

oming to our state and specific for our state's needs so it gives it us the seat of the table if you look at the the website for California's Maps there are a tremendous amount of organizations included in their their program and that does eat up a lot of the funding really fast so us keeping Utah morean allows more of the funding to go direct to businesses then also echoing that survey ask um we really can't advocate for program funding or for new programs without having that so it's it's reall

y imperative um there's a really cool um organization in Montana where they have some of the things people have been talking about like a shared use kitchen facility that does training and nutrition labeling but it took them I think about a decade to build towards so it might seem like one more more link but like these kind of surveys help build up to bigger bigger opportunities for food businesses over time and when we you know when we talk about consistency we're really talking about consisten

cy with the kind of assistance that our technical assistant are providing are they helping with business plans are they helping answer food safety questions are they helping with this topic or this topic but the specific resources that we can use within Utah will be based on what Utah needs not what California needs the consistency within the capacity building is there will be one application form that everyone in these four states submits to apply for some of that funding but how we work with o

ur producers in Utah it will be specific to Utah as I mentioned we can still provide grant writing workshops to help you access funding at both the state level the specialty crop block grants the RSI funding that Caroline mentioned and also at the federal level other USDA sources of funding that are available to producers we can provide all of those resources and workshops even if our Utah a producers do not ultimately end up applying for the capacity building funding those better build business

A Better Business Builder Awards they keep changing the name um we can still provide training and input and assistance on some of those Grant applications even if ultimately your funding does not come through the regional program that is why they have set it up so that Arizona Nevada Utah and California all have equal representation on the Leadership Council there are just as many people from Utah on the Leadership Council as there are from California just as many people from Nevada so when it

comes to steering the direction of the food Business Center generally all of us regardless of the size of our state or the priorities for a in our state have an equal voice as we discuss some of these issues the consistency that they want and I just want to reiterate this is in how these programs are ad administered how we're sharing between states how we are assigning people to an advisory committee they want to have some consistency with those processes even though the make up an advisory of a

n advisory committee for Utah would look very different than the makeup and advisory committee from California they just want to make sure that we are following some consistent processes in creating those programs but we have the flexibility to choose our focus and that is where that needs assessment is so critical in getting us that information so we know what our Utah egg producers and processors need and then another question came in how will food formulas be protected if they are supported t

hrough this program would they potentially be shared with potential competitors so I've been assisting food companies for about 15 years um with their formulations uh with nutrition facts with food safety um evaluations and the problem is you can't get great assistance if you are hesitant to share your formula we will need to discuss that in the past there have been some concerns with signing uh you know any type of of legal yes I'm not going to share your formulation because when we work with a

hundred different companies making salsa we're going to tell every single one of them you need to add more vinegar or lime juice to acidify your product more if one person decides that that was their trade secret and we shared that with everyone um you know so there needs to be that understanding that there are certain kinds of product development or product formulation advice that we're going to give generally because that is just best practice that is food science but it doesn't mean we're go

ing to share your unique spice blend with anyone else how we move forward within the structure of this food Business program we need to take a closer look at that and work with University legal to determine if if we can sign any type of legal document or if that's something that at that point we would need to put you in touch with a private consultant who as a privately owned business could provide that type of assistance with that confidentiality guarantee so I hope that answers your question u

m but if you you know if you have any follow-up questions for me on that on the the labeling or the formulation please email me directly