Michigan Food Innovation District Grand Opening (Lansing Civic Events Blog)

Michigan Food Innovation District 

Grand Opening 

by Chuck Krafft

October 29, 2013 

Today was the Grand Opening Ceremony for the Michigan Food Innovation District.  The food district is a concentration of food-oriented business and services that connects businesses and related entities as they participate in moving food from the grower to your plate!

 

Dennis and Brent Forsberg from T.A. Forsberg, Inc. started this project along with Dr. David Spencer as Forsberg Family LLC looked for a way to use its land near I-96 to bring business investment and jobs to the Lansing Area.  They picked up many partners along the way including Michigan State University.  

The area is already home to several businesses in the agriculture and food industry including Cherry Capital Foods, Earthly Delights, Honey Boy Bob, Platinum Genetics, and the Michigan Crop Improvement Association. 

The event featured tables sponsored by: 

Wieland Davco Construction and C2AE Architects who built a model of a building that could be placed on one of the lots by a company moving into the district.

Incubake, a local business incubator that helps people get started in businesses where they produce food products for public consumption.

Cherry Capital Foods, who provide a regional resource connecting wholesale buyers with Michigan grown and Michigan-made foods from around the state.

Food for Thought, a company that helps smaller food producers in various ways, from providing kitchens to help to make products to helping market and distribute the products.

Honey Boy Bob, a company that wholesales Michigan produced and organic foods to stores around the state.

Earthly Delights, a company that markets wild-harvested, traditional and artisanal foods.  Their brochure for Holiday Gift Baskets featured some really interesting and appetizing food choices!

The event featured a welcome speech from Brent Forsberg who explained how the Forsbergs are trying to use some well-located land near I-96 to bring jobs and investments to the area.  After much research and evaluation, they did a feasibility study regarding a Food Innovation District and with the help of Dr. David Spencer and many others, determined that the District is a viable business proposition.  After all, agriculture is the second largest economic activity in Michigan! 

They learned that a lot of food grown in Michigan has to be transported out of the state for processing and packaging before it is brought back to Michigan to be sold and eaten.  Fountain Pointe is a great, centrally located place to do this processing!

Dr. John Fisk, the Director of the Wallace Center at Winrock International agreed with this and pointed out that selling and eating local food is becoming more and more important to many people.  This conserves resources and helps to keep costs down.

Randy Bell from Michigan State University Extension stated that Agriculture is a 50 billion dollar industry in Michigan.  Geography is an important reason why Fountain Pointe is a great location for the Food Innovation District.  He pointed out that Lansing (and Fountain Pointe’s) proximity to I-96, I-94 and Highway 127 provide an efficient means for transporting food from producers up north and in other rural regions to eaters in more urban regions.

John Hoagland from Cherry Capital Foods announced that he is expanding his operation to include a building on a lot bordering Fountain Pointe.  He noted that the agricultural industry is evolving away from a model where inexpensive calories (grain, etc.) are mass produced on massive farms and processed in massive corporate operations to a model where many of the farms produce other things and are processed by smaller, more specialized companies.

K. Terry Morrison, the Executive Director of the Michigan Food Processors Association of Michigan, also pointed out that there is a void in the market for smaller operations to handle apples, carrots and other fruits and vegetables that the Food Innovation District at Fountain Pointe could help to fill.

Nancy Nyquist from the Michigan Department of Agriculture let us know that the state of Michigan has some goals for the Agriculture Industry.  These include growing the industry to increase the number of jobs in Michigan as well as to increase access in Michigan to healthy, locally-grown foods.  She noted that there is a huge worldwide market for Michigan Agricultural Products.

The consensus from these speakers and the others who have helped to organize the Michigan Food Innovation District is that Fountain Pointe is an ideal place to start and grow this process!  We look forward to seeing a lot of locally produced food and a lot of economic activity as well as good jobs come to Fountain Pointe and the Lansing Area!