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!
