Field Trip To ACEnet and Snowville Creamery 7/31-8/1

We’re planning a field trip for the end of the month. We’ll be traveling to Athens, Ohio to visit two nationally recognized leaders strengthening the food system in the Appalachian region: the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet) and Snowville Creamery.

ACEnet offers businesses access to an affordable food manufacturing facility. Their food manufacturing and commercial kitchen facility hosts over 150 businesses each year.

ACEnet works with over 500 businesses annually through business counseling, training, loans, networking, marketing initiatives, shared use facilities, technology initiatives, and general capacity building. They operate two business incubation centers, a food manufacturing center and a commercial kitchen in and around Athens. ACEnet Ventures was formed in 2000 to provide small business loans.

ACEnet emphasizes the idea of a “triple bottom line,” which focuses on working with new and existing businesses to (1) increase their profits; (2) build capacity to employ people at a living wage; and (3) adopt business policies and procedures that protect the local and global environment.

Read ACEnet’s newest publication, “Entrepreneurship With a Regional Flavor.”

Snowville Creamery milk is packaged and distributed within 48 hours of milking.

After we tour ACEnet, we’ll travel to Pomeroy, OH to meet with Warren Taylor, Snowville Creamery‘s dynamic owner. Taylor operates a unique small scale fluid milk processing plant, striving to minimize the impact of dairy processing on the environment. Snowville Creamery processes and bottles milk and cream from neighboring dairy farmers who use sustainable pasture-grazing methods. Milk from Snowville Creamery is non-homogenized (so the cream rises to the top) and pasteurized at 170 °, a temperature lower than most milk. Snowville strives to make “good, clean, fair food.”

Listen to Warren Taylor, on NPR: “Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist.”

One of the key recommendations in the Virginia Farm to Table Plan is to “assess the supply and demand for value-added food processing (i.e., canning, milling, freezing, on-farm milk processing) in Virginia and identify the hindrances and opportunities for operating value-added food processing facilities in the state.” By investing strategically in the market for regionally produced agriculture and food products through creating new value added and differentiated products, Virginia can increase its number of farmers and food-based enterprises, promoting resilient economic development around farming and food and preserving farmland through successful land transitions from one generation to the next.

See below for the details and contact us ASAP to reserve your seat. It’s going to be a great trip. Hope you can join us.

Details:

We will plan to leave from Harrisonburg on Tuesday, July 31 at 2:00 p.m. and plan to be back to Harrisonburg by 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 1.
The cost to reserve a place on the van is $30. Meals and lodging will be on your own. We are looking at two hotels for lodging. The Highlander Motel is $39 for a single and $50 for a double, while the Holiday Inn Express is $109 per night for a king or queen.
If you or others are interested in participating in the trip, please contact us as soon as possible. Please also let us know if you are willing to share a room to reduce the cost. We would like to make lodging reservations as soon as possible.