Field Notes
Stories and resources for re-linking the food chain.
Our new year’s resolution
I am writing to let you know about an exciting change at Local Orbit. My name is Rob Barreca and I recently became the new CEO of Local Orbit. I’m a food hub director, organic farmer, and Local Orbit user myself. The changes my team and I’ll be making at Local Orbit...
read more
The exciting future of Local Orbit and Mahina
I’m excited today to hand over the reigns of Local Orbit to Farm Link Hawaii, which has been a long time Local Orbit customer, and to announce an exciting new open source project, Mahina. Rob Barreca, the Founder/Director of Farm Link, is a farmer, fermented foods...
read more
“Local beer takes more than a taproom.”
Last year we highlighted LINC Foods' work with Gonzaga University to overcome logistics challenges in order to get local produce into university dining halls. We're big fans of LINC's work, not just because they're a Local Orbit customer - but because co-founders...
read more
Your Biggest Software Cost Isn’t the Software
The most significant cost of software has nothing to do with technology. It's the cost of user engagement and adoption within your organization once you choose the software. Ease of use one of the most significant measures of success. If your team (or your buyers,...
read more
Transparency On Demand: Local Orbit’s New Marketing Tools
Transparency is good for business. "The drivers of consumer value appear to have fundamentally changed, with far-reaching implications for the food and beverage industry. Traditional drivers (Taste, Price, and Convenience) no longer represent the dominant influence of...
read more
Surprising learnings from our user survey – and what we’re doing about it.
We recently conducted a series of surveys among our network of local food suppliers, food hubs, and buyers. While we weren't surprised that most buyers say they can't find enough local product to meet their needs, we were surprised by how many suppliers and food hubs...
read more
9 Resources, Readings and Organizations to Support in 2017
As 2016 winds down, we've put together a shortlist of resources and organizations working on key issues related to building and maintaining sustainable local food economies. If you're looking for some end of year reading, or if you're still thinking about where to...
read more
Collaboration Outperforms Policy
I'm sharing my response to a recent thread on the National Good Food Network Food Hub Collaboration Discussion Group, started by a question: We are wondering what policies (and how strict) have been put in place by other food hubs regarding individual producers making...
read more
Open Source Initiative Makes Food Safety Information Available to Everyone
We’re giving a shout-out to the Open Source Food Safety Initiative launched last week by the Underground Food Collective and Sarapis. Open Source is often applied to technology, as we’ve discussed in previous Field Notes. It's a simple concept: sharing knowledge...
read more
Local Orbit Announces New Plans and Capabilities for Local Producers and Distributors
In this season of thanks, Local Orbit is grateful for, and thrilled to support, the progress we’re seeing as we work with our customers to reshape local food economies. The foundation of Local Orbit is our “listening architecture.” We’ve created a platform that...
read more
Using Existing Infrastructure to Grow Local Food Sales: Four Questions for Diana Endicott, Good Natured Family Farms
Diana is the founder and director of the Good Natured Family Farms’ alliance. Founded by farmers for farmers, the alliance aggregates products from 125 suppliers around Kansas City and provides it to CSA and wholesale customers. Diana will join us for Transparency,...
read more/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7156449/GettyImages-137701431.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1)
“Adding good stuff is much harder than shrinking the bad.”
Everyone who works to buy or sell local, sustainable food is reshaping the food system—and that’s no small task. Local Orbit works with large-scale buyers and small and mid-sized suppliers to streamline the work of sourcing, selling, and delivering local and...
read more
Making Connections: How We Think About Software Services
Today, businesses recognize Software as a Service (SaaS) as an accepted way to deliver applications, but it was not always that way. Companies began adopting this strategy in the late 1990’s, but it didn’t really take hold as a widespread practice until the mid...
read more
Local Procurement Learnings from University of Michigan: Four Questions for Steve Mangan, Director, Michigan Dining
University of Michigan Dining Director Steve Mangan leads one of the nation’s largest college dining operations, including nine dining halls and 20 markets and cafés located across the Ann Arbor campus. Steve will join Local Orbit for Transparency, Collaboration &...
read more
Highlights from Local Orbit’s Supply Chain Catalyst Interviews
Over the last several weeks we’ve had the opportunity to sit down and chat with an exciting array of discussion catalysts who will be joining us for Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies - November 7-9 in Ann Arbor. The diversity of...
read more
Scholarships are Available for Michigan farmers and food producers to attend Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies, November 7-9 in Ann Arbor
Food producers are central to rebuilding local food systems, but they are often missing from conversations and events that focus on aggregation, distribution, and procurement. In order to build collaborative supply chains, both established and early-stage producers...
read more
The Evolution of Local Food Procurement in Institutions: Four Questions for Larry Schuler, Shu’s Hospitality
As owner and President of Schu’s Hospitality, Larry oversees restaurant development, hospitality management services for food, service/lodging, strategic consulting, and niche consumer food products for a variety of clients. From 2014-2016 he was the interim Business...
read more
Established and emerging supply chain technologies in Ann Arbor collaborate to further field
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (September 9, 2016) - Local Orbit, the supply chain platform for the new food economy, has moved into LLamasoft’s new office space in the McKinley Towne Centre building at 201 S. Division in downtown Ann Arbor. “We’re incredibly fortunate to find...
read more
Networks and Food Hubs Help Local Producers Scale Up: Four Questions for Vicki Zilke of Zilke Vegetable Farm
Vicki Zilke will join Local Orbit’s workshop Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies, Nov 7-9 in Ann Arbor. Vicki, a Master Gardener and former Nurse Practitioner, along with her husband Tom, owns and operates Zilke Vegetable Farm, a...
read more
To Scale Up Local Food Collaborate, Compete, and Network: Four Questions for Dan Hobbs, Arkansas Valley Growers and Rocky Mountain Farmers Union
Dan Hobbs will share his expertise on networked and collaborative food systems at Local Orbit’s Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies, Nov 7-9 in Ann Arbor. Dan has twenty years of agricultural and rural development experience in the...
read more
A Retail Food Hub Connecting Producers to Consumers and Increasing Local Supply: Six Questions for Kathy Sample and Bill Brinkerhoff, Argus Farm Stop
Kathy Sample and Bill Brinkerhoff have built a successful business that supports local suppliers year round. They'll join Local Orbit as Discussion Catalysts for our upcoming workshop, Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies, November...
read more
Sustainable Local Supply Chains in K-12 Foodservice: Six Questions for Kymm Mutch
Kymm Mutch is a pioneer in farm-to-school sourcing. She will be a Discussion Catalyst at Local Orbit’s upcoming workshop, Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies, November 7-9 in Ann Arbor. As the Administrator of School Nutrition...
read more
A Workshop for Supply Chain Problem Solvers
Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies A Workshop for Supply Chain Problem Solvers - November 7-9 in Ann Arbor, Michigan Conferences can be useful, but for collaborative learning and problem solving, we find that small, interactive...
read more
Change Food Speaker Spotlight: Erika Block
Local Orbit CEO Erika Block is giving a Change Talk as part of the Business Doing It Right track at this year's Change Food Festival in New York. This interview with Brittany Barton originally appeared on the Change Food Fest Blog. How do you define local food? And...
read more
Start Small and Iterate – A Process for Managing Change Successfully
Over the past few months, Local Orbit has published several blogs with a similar theme: managing change. Change occurs in every business and organization – and it’s a sign of health, related to managing growth, embracing new opportunities – or taking action to fix a...
read more
Top Revenue Drivers for Local Food Producers
Local Orbit supports 12,000 buyers and suppliers across North America who do business in 85 local markets. As our CTO Andy Bass has written, "Local Orbit generates millions of transactions on a daily basis, across all aspects of the order to cash process – from...
read more
FDA Final Rule Provides Needed Clarity for Local Food Producers
Deadlines for many provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) will be in effect this fall. While there is still significant confusion surrounding the language of many FSMA rules, the FDA recently the clarified definitions of "food facility" and "retail...
read more
Creating Business Value with Open Source Software
At Local Orbit, we frequently hear of efforts to build or utilize open source software (OSS) for local food businesses. Commonly misperceived as “free” software, it sounds appealing to small, cost-conscious operations that strive to make a social impact while building...
read more
The Cost of Indecision
Ever struggled to get your organization to consider a change or have your organization evaluate a change and then stall on taking next steps? Identifying the cost of indecision can reduce the organizational inertia that prevents you from moving forward. When...
read more
Small Steps. Big Impact.
As Local Orbit develops new processes and features, we focus on incremental change and continuous iteration. This means that we add new components into our processes and our application without disturbing anyone’s business, including our own. This way, we can use...
read more
Transparency, Collaboration & Shared Value in Local Food Economies – November 7-9, 2016
Hub Camp is back! Over the past two years, Local Orbit has offered boot camps for start-up local food distribution entrepreneurs. 140 participants from the US and Canada attended Hub Camps in Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Davis, California, and Grand Rapids,...
read moreCelebrating A New Food Economy With Local Orbit
Michael Rogers, vice president communications for the Small Business Association of Michigan, talks with Erika Block, the founder of Local Orbit, Ann Arbor, Michigan, the supply chain platform for people who are creating a new, connected food economy. Local Orbit,...
read more
2016 National Farm to Cafeteria Conference – Impacts and Lessons
Last week, I, along with Stacy Kannawin from the Local Orbit team, attended the 2016 National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Madison, WI and it was inspiring! The theme of “Moving Forward Together” was prevalent throughout the words of the keynote speakers and the...
read more
The Power of Data to Grow Local Food Systems
How Local Orbit helps organizations access their data, and how they can use it to plan for the future and develop sustainable local supply chains. Each day, our digital footprint grows larger and larger. In fact, it permeates our lives so thoroughly that we...
read more
Does PACA affect your food hub?
The Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act protects businesses dealing in fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables by establishing and enforcing a code of fair business practices. Denetra M. McPherson explains how PACA may apply to you. Guest Post by Denetra M....
read more
What is Organic?
As consumer demand for transparency in the food system grows, we see many terms used to describe food, such as local, organic and fair trade. The challenge, however, is understanding what these terms actually mean. Local Orbit believes that the best way to ensure...
read more
“Local food systems are not inherently sustainable”
At events and in meetings, and through the rich pool of applicants we’ve had for recent job openings, we’re seeing a growing number of young people grappling with seemingly intractable food systems problems – with greater depth and awareness of the complexity - and...
read more
“Food Leaders are De Facto Climate Leaders”
Healthcare Without Harm published an excellent article last month about the role of hospital foodservice in climate change: Nourishing Patients and the Planet: The Role of Hospital Food Service in Climate Leadership. Featuring the work of the University of Washington...
read more
Enhanced Tax Break for Food Donations is a Win for Food Businesses
In December 2015, Congress passed an expanded tax break that can benefit food businesses that donate food to hunger relief organizations for people in need while reducing food waste. Previously, companies had to wait for Congress to annually renew the regulations that...
read more
Networks: Helping Grow Local Food Economies
It’s been a couple weeks since the Local Orbit team returned from the National Food Hub Conference, and there’s a lot to share about the event. The conference provided a great opportunity to connect with customers and hear from business leaders about the challenges...
read more
Local Orbit recognized as a 2016 “Michigan 50 Companies to Watch”
We are excited to announce that Local Orbit has been selected as one of the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch. The award represents an important recognition for Local Orbit’s growth and signals the increasing importance of new food economy businesses. The contest...
read more
Local Orbit’s Software Development Process
by Jackie Cohen, Local Orbit Software Engineer As a software engineer at Local Orbit, of course I write code – but that’s not all. I do larger scale product development tasks with the team as well as smaller tasks, including, data management for development of team...
read more
Conversations Across the Supply Chain
I'm on the road this month, attending events for institutional foodservice operators, local food suppliers, and a conversation about reducing food waste hosted by Panasonic's Innovation Lab. Universities, schools, healthcare facilities and other non-commercial...
read more
Questions to ask when choosing a CRM or other business software
There was a thread on the National Food Hub community of practice list this week about Customer Relationship Management tools (CRM's). I added a response which can be used when thinking about any new tool, and thought it would helpful to post it here. At Local Orbit...
read more
Can software loosen Big Food’s grip on institutions?
We love this visualization of the Local Orbit network, which was recently published in piece about LocalEyes, our Supplier Management Service for institutions, at The New Food Economy. Increasingly, large institutions are setting food procurement standards that...
read more
LINC Foods and Gonzaga University: A Case Study
LINC Foods and Gonzaga University: A Case Study The Challenge Students at Gonzaga University are demanding more local food options and greater visibility into the sources of supply. In response, the University established aggressive goals with its dining services...
read more
Can Local Food Help the California Drought?
The National Drought Mitigation Center reports that even with short-term rainfall this winter, severe drought will continue throughout much of California. How can local food systems help address this? By increasing the supply of these same crops, grown locally.
read more
Jason Houston’s Farm Photos on Local Orbit
We love the farming and food production photos on our homepage which are the work documentary photographer Jason Houston, who writes: For over a decade I...
read more