All of the enterprises profiled in the values-based food supply chain case studies involve and serve what the authors defined as farms and ranches of the middle, and all of them exhibit considerable commonality as well as diversity. As the authors re-examined the four original cases (Organic Valley, Shepherd’s Grain, Country Natural Beef and Red Tomato) we saw that, with the passage of time, the enterprises experienced various governance challenges. In comparing these and the five new cases (Co-op Partners Warehouse, Full Circle Farm, Good Earth Farms, Home Grown Wisconsin and Idaho’s Bounty), we also recognized that the leadership structures flow clearly from the ownership structures. An addition to the project was policy analysis from which we learned that the use of state, federal and local programs is quite variable across the enterprises.
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