This guidebook walks you through creating a business plan for a small meat processing facility. It uses a real business plan as an example.

Use this guidebook to clearly state your business goals, provide reasons that these goals are achievable, and to outline your plan to achieve the goals.

The PDF is available from the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network. IowanEntrepreneurship

This fact sheet provides basic information for retailers who want to engage and grow their customer base through social media. Included are tips for creating social media posts, building relationships, branding and marketing, and building audience.

The purpose of this PDF guide (LF-0015A) is to explore how food hubs can use their own financial data to identify and address the strengths and challenges in their operation. Relying on data that most food hubs already have available in their financial records, we show how financial metrics can be used by managers to identify problems and risks and make decisions.

The accompanying Excel spreadsheet (LF-0015B) provides an additional tool to calculate and interpret key metrics from a food hub's operation.

Farm-to-school programs around the country have wrestled with the challenge of sourcing local meat. To explore this question, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, in partnership with the Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative and Iowa Food Hub, sought to build a meat-to-school program in northeast Iowa. This series of three publications provides highlights of the project's successes and challenges, on the topics of sourcing products, working with pork producers, and working with beef producers.

This publication series tells the story of the meat-to-school journey in northeast Iowa and what was learned along the way.

Farm-to-school programs around the country have wrestled with the challenge of sourcing local meat. To explore this question, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, in partnership with the Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative and Iowa Food Hub, sought to build a meat-to-school program in northeast Iowa. This series of three publications provides highlights of the project's successes and challenges, on the topics of sourcing products, working with pork producers, and working with beef producers. In this publication, Iowa Food Hub reviews their search of a system that could source pork at a price point acceptable to schools.

In 2014, they decided to test out an unlikely solution: the procurement and processing of "off-matrix" hogs.

Farm-to-school programs around the country have wrestled with the challenge of sourcing local meat. To explore this question, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, in partnership with the Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative and Iowa Food Hub, sought to build a meat-to-school program in northeast Iowa. This series of three publications provides highlights of the project's successes and challenges, on the topics of sourcing products, working with pork producers, and working with beef producers.

In this publication, learn about the beef-to-school pilot project used successfully in other states: sourcing cull cows for farm-to-school beef.

For food hubs, or businesses that aggregate and distribute local food, limited funds can be a barrier to growth. If food hub managers pay close attention to cash flow, however, they can grow their business using the income generated by the business itself, and reduce the need for grants or loans in the start-up phase.

This publication explains the idea of cash flow and how food hub managers can use it to their advantage, drawing on the real-world experiences of Iowa Food Hub.

See more at: www.leopold.iastate.edu/marketing/food-hubs.

Outlines three actions for food handlers to take related to hand washing, staying home when sick, and wearing proper work attire.

Learn the basics of proper glove use in foodservice establishments.

A Guide to Building, Upgrading or Expanding a Small Meat Processing Facility in Iowa.

Data for Decision Makers reports can be generated by visiting the ISU Extension and Outreach Indicators Portal.

This publication helps community development specialists prepare for collaborative community assessment activities. It discusses characteristics of such an assessment, steps involved, and practical implications.