While quality is a high priority for food manufacturers when sourcing ingredients, it is often not enough. Ingredient quality assurance is almost always required by specialty food manufacturers. If you want to expand your market options, it may be worth investigating certifications for your farm.
Beyond Fresh and Direct fact sheets are part of a project exploring the opportunities and challenges small and medium-size farms encounter when they seek to enter the rapidly-growing specialty food marketplace as either ingredient suppliers or manufacturers themselves. The project included:
- A survey of specialty food manufacturers in California, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin in 2015, and
- Interviews with selected manufacturers and farmers who supply manufacturers in four broad food categories: dairy; grain and baked goods; processed meats; and processed fruit, vegetables, nuts, and herbs
Continue reading:
Standards: What Standards Must You Meet to Supply Ingredients to Specialty Food Manufacturers? (PDF)
Project Team:
Larry Lev, Oregon State University, Project Director
Gail Feenstra, University of California-Davis
Shermain Hardesty, University of California-Davis
Laurie Houston, Oregon State University
Jan Joannides, Renewing the Countryside
Robert P. King, University of Minnesota
This project was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2015-68006-22906 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
