Entrepreneurship in food area is the driving force for the industry to grow and expand and every new entrepreneur knows how difficult it is to start a new venture in food processing. The biggest hurdle is hard to access information necessary to plan a new venture and once this is overcome the next biggest challenge to sustain them with diligence and devotion. Of course Internet is a precious source of varied information and to day's denizens depend on this source more and more for day to day activities. But for a venture what is needed is information that is reliable and derived from experienced professionals and unfortunately very often internet sources can be confusing and contradictory making them useless as a basis for investment. If a recent report appearing on this issue in some media is to be believed, here is an organization that is doing service to the entrepreneurs through valuable experience based information.
"She knew she was at the forefront of a movement. Four years ago, when Danielle Gould started talking to people about the growing demand for locally produced food and the ways technology could help organic farmers and small businesses thrive, people looked at her like she was crazy. Investors weren't interested in food startups, and it was difficult to fundraise. But she wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She knew she was ahead of the curve, and that everyone else would eventually catch up. Gould started a blog, Food+Tech Connect, to write about open data and agriculture, and bootstrapped it into a company from there. "When I started, I had 50 organizations that were really thinking about food, data, and tech, and then it just exploded. We've grown with the movement," said Gould, the CEO of Food+Tech Connect. Today the company is a site of record and a connector for the food technology sector, with well over 3,000 organizations using the website. What makes the business unique is that it covers the entirety of the supply chain -- from farm management software and restaurant management software to consumer-facing health apps and fitness wearables. The company has weekly infographics that explain aspects of the industry, lists of resources for start ups, and discussions of upcoming trends in agriculture. They also host meetups in New York and San Francisco. And as it turns out, Gould was absolutely right about the demand. Food is one of the fastest growing industries around the world, both in the start up and investment space. In fact, two of the biggest areas in tech investment right now are food delivery services and grocery delivery services, which hit a five-year high in investments during the first quarter of 2014, a 51% jump from 2013. Gould and her three full-time staff members at Food+Tech Connect produce editorial content daily, and the company also hosts hackathons several times a year to tackle big problems in the food industry. They recently held Hack Meat in Palo Alto, to work on projects geared toward the meat industry. Next up is Hack Dining, for the restaurant industry, which will be in New York."
The organization mentioned may be restricting its activities to the geographical boundary of the US but has scope to expand the same to other countries where millions of entrepreneurs are languishing with hunger for information for their plans to invest in the food sector. Each country has its own industry environment and it is understandable that one organization cannot comprehend all of them due to logistical and legal constraints. This is where indigenous organizations have to sprout in different countries to perform the above role. With governments pumping in money to encourage new entrepreneurs to take up agri-based ventures, there is no reasons why service oriented organizations cannot come up similar to the one illustrated above.
V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com
