Growing the Local Food Economy by Expanding Access to Legal and Regulatory Education for Rural Entrepreneurs and Small Farms

Over the past decade the U.S. has experienced substantial growth in the number of new agri- food businesses launched. At the same time rural firms and farms face obstacles impeding theirabilities to fully capitalize on food startup opportunities. A significant barrier to entry is theability to navigate food laws and regulations and legal and regulatory resources for rural foodentrepreneurs are scarce if they exist at all.Startup Food Biz is a certified disabled veteran-owned business with the goal of will bridgingthis gap by providing educational and legal tools needed to start manage and protect rural foodbusinesses through an online platform. The protype platform developed in Phase I assistscustomers to identify and understand laws and regulations through on-demand courses andoffers additional tools to help address other legal and regulatory needs.Phase II is focused on improving the protype design and instructional design process expandingcustomer discovery developing additional new courses expansion into new states (scale up)usability testing and exploring state agriculture agencies as potential customers. The primarymarkets for our products are: (1) startup and new food entrepreneurs with less than seven yearsof operations; and (2) established food producers with workforce training needs.Phase II will result in further development and scale up of a legal and regulatory educationplatform in 7 states (Arkansas Kansas Louisiana Michigan Missouri Oklahoma and Texas) tohelp grow the rural food industry. We also discuss preliminary aspects of Phase III and nextsteps to further commercialize the platform upon successful completion of Phase II.