Maps help us navigate the world, and they not only show us how to get from point A to point B, but, depending on the type of map, they can also help us to see where patterns, clusters, and gaps exist in a spatial environment. As part of KCARD’s state-wide Local Food System Expansion Initiative, a series of interactive maps has been developed to visualize the Kentucky local food system. Stay tuned for parts two and three of the series in the next few weeks. We will present a closer look into local food sales in Kentucky and the various industries that make up the local food system.
There are lots of great resources available to Kentucky Producers. The Center for Crop Diversification offers budgets, horticulture profiles, and price reports. In our guest blog post by Brett Wolff, he discusses utilizing price reports in planning for next season.
Consumer trends changed drastically when the coronavirus hit. You probably have customers who never thought of purchasing local until it became a necessity. While stores, restaurants, and other businesses are opening back up, many consumer trends are sticking around. Keeping those new customers around will be key for sustaining the growth your business has had the past six months. So how do you keep your new customer coming back again and again? Here are five tips to keep your customers.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be showcasing partners in our Growing Your Farm and Food Business Webinar series. These partners provide funding opportunities to Kentucky’s agricultural producers and agribusinesses. In this post, we are learning about the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy and the programs they administer.
If you are like many business owners, the coronavirus pandemic has turned your world upside down. Your cash flow or product availability might have changed, which means you might have to change up other pieces of your business, such as your marketing strategy. Now is not the time to cut your marketing budget or marketing efforts. Why? With so much uncertainty now, you need to reassure your customers that you are here for them and that your business isn’t going anywhere. Check out five tips to pivot your marketing during changing times.
Spencer Guinn, one of KCARD’s business development specialists, took some time to answer a few questions about himself and one of KCARD’s new services, AutoCAD drawings.
Due to COVID, consumers are changing the way they are buying and what they are buying. While many consumers are settling into learning to live with the reality of COVID, the impact of the pandemic has left more lasting effects on the way consumers are shopping, and what is important to them. What does that mean for you? In this post, we discuss 3 major themes in consumer trends that are projected to continue into fall.
The Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (KCARD) will be hosting a series of five “Growing Your Farm and Food Business” webinars this October to assist agricultural producers and food businesses with understanding business fundamentals, identifying grant opportunities, and developing a strategy to seek funding. Webinars will take place from 10:00am – 11:30am Eastern/9:00am -10:30am Central and will be available for later viewing.
We have a saying in KCARD when we are looking at financial statements or projections that come into our shop – “Did you find the dead body in them?” This is our little way of referring to the situation where we see a financial statement and instantly know that something is not quite right. A lot of times it is not on purpose. Instead, it is often where someone makes a mistake as they are developing the statement that can lead to the financial reports being inaccurate and the business owner not truly understanding the past or future financial performance and health of their business.
In our blog post a few weeks ago, we took a look at how you develop initial revenue assumptions for a new business. In this post, let’s talk about an existing business and how we help that business develop financial projections. Why bother with developing projections? You know they are going to be wrong, right? Sure. Projections will almost certainly not be exactly correct because so many factors go into what will happen to reach a sales number or expense number.
In mid-July we hosted the “Direct-to-Consumer Beef Webinar Series” with several partners including the University of Kentucky Department of Animal and Sciences, Kentucky Beef Council, and several others. We offered this series to respond to the conversation and education around proper production, processing, business development, marketing, and sales for finished beef. We’ve pulled together a few of the noteworthy takeaways from the webinar series.
The Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development is a non-profit organization established to facilitate agricultural and rural businesses in Kentucky. We are supported primarily through grants provided by the USDA Rural Cooperative Development Program and the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board. Additional support is provided through our work with partners around the state and through fees charged for select client services.
