Case Study: Food Connect Shed
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Investment type: Equity crowdfunding, impact investment and philanthropic
Founded in 2004, Food Connect provides seasonal, ecological food from local farmers within a 500 km radius of Brisbane.
While evolving their model, the Food Connect team undertook a range of research on best practices in local food hubs across Australia and internationally and found that one of the successful tactics being used overseas to embed values and equity into operations was developing community-owned infrastructure.
So when Food Connect's landlord signalled he wanted to sell the warehouse they had been renting for over a decade, Rob Pekin and Emma-Kate Rose decided to see if they could work with their community to buy it.
Emma-Kate worked with Pledge Me to develop an equity crowdfunding campaign that would give the community the opportunity to be their investors. Shares were priced at $1 a share and the minimum investment was $500 and could go up to $10 000 each, and more for sophisticated investors. The crowdfunding campaign commenced with a party, and thanks to a whole lot of media buzz and community buy-in, and some key relationships turning into big pledges, the campaign hit its goal, with $800,000 raised on the final day.
Food Connect Shed raised $2.1mil in total, and with 513 careholders it demonstrated that critical food infrastructure funding could be done ethically, with flow-on community ownership and benefits (the Shed aims to distribute dividends). In May 2019, over 500 careholders were invited to celebrate in the Food Connect Shed with a giant potluck dinner.
Ownership of the shed has enabled Food Connect to further develop a community embedded food hub model. Their commercial kitchen is used in a number of ways including processing value-added products, that otherwise would have been on-farm waste. They also lease to micro-enterprise start-up food makers who specialise in artisan products.
The facilities have also enabled Food Connect to develop an ongoing program of workshops and events, and extend their wholesale arm to service buyers groups, restaurants, cafes, farmers market stall holders and cooperatives. In short, they have created a vibrant community gathering place centred around food and relationships.
This case study is an extract from Regenerating Investment in Food and Farming: A Roadmap.