Okay, sure. But why?

It’s Understandable and Dependable. As an investment category it’s often suggested that you invest in something you know. Well, food certainly can fit that category. Further, all of the research we have seen indicates that, we’ll still be eating food well into 2050 and beyond. That’s kinda a joke but kinda not.

But seriously, the facts are that food is likely to be a more understandable and dependable area for potential investment, than say, the technology or financial sectors of the market or something even more of a mystery, like investing in foreign currencies.

Also, investing in something as stable, consistent, and enduring as food itself is essentially the opposite of investing in, say, cryptocurrencies (sorry #cryptobros, to the moon!). For example, by investing locally in the types of companies listed on the CrowdSprout™ site, you can actually meet the owner of the company or you can see inside their food truck or go visit the small farmer or actual kitchen of the Cottage Food producer. You can really do your own investigations. You are more likely to be able to see, touch and understand this type of investment. You just can’t do that with something like crytocurrencies.

The Market for Food Today is Massive, and Growing Every Year: In 2021 alone, the overall US market for food of all types totaled nearly $2.12 trillion, or over $500 per month, for every single American or over $2,000 for a family of 4.

The Potential for Growth in Local Foods is also Significant. Using the number for a family of 4 in Colorado spending a minimum of around $2.000 per month on food, and with the state’s population well over 5 Million, this puts the overall annual market for food in Colorado at over $3 Billion. Assuming the local foods market could capture just 5% of that $3 Billion food market, close to that of organic foods, then a conservative estimate for the potential local foods market in Colorado is over $150 Million. This is estimated to be well over 5 times the current market for local foods in Colorado.

More and More Shoppers Prefer Local Foods. Whether it's grocery stores or restaurants, the choice is clear, more shoppers are preferring foods grown and gathered from local sources they can depend on. With increasing pushback against Big Food—the desire for healthy, local, accessible foods has never been greater.

LOCAL FOOD – YOUR DIRECT PATH TO THE FARMER™

No Competition in Regards to Intellectual Property. One of the more important business advantages food has over other product categories relates to intellectual property. Unlike with smaller tech startups, when it comes to food, Big Tech— Google, Facebook, Microsoft — have no leverage over, or competition with small Colorado food companies. Even large multinational food giants have no real intellectual property leverage over local food companies.

For example, The Hersey Company can’t stop a local entrepreneur creating their own chocolate treats. Nor can Betty Crocker stop a local Cottage Food artist from making their own fantastic Red Velvet cake with their own special icing. Nor can Kraft Foods stop someone from making their own ketchup, mustard or relish.

It's the reason why local food businesses throughout Colorado can create, produce and sell nearly any food items imaginable as long as it's under their own name and brand.

Food can be a great place for entrepreneurs.

Further, Colorado has demonstrated its unique ability to serve as a great place to start and grow successful food related companies, such as: Celestial Seasonings, Justin’s, Horizon Organic, Izze Beverages or entire restaurant chains such as: Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Noodle Company and Qdoba’s.

Food Costs are Up – Way Up. Food prices have risen 10.4% from June 2021 to June 2022, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Everything we eat is more expensive: cereal increased 15% over last year. The price of eggs increased 33%.

We Need More Durable Food Supply Chains and Local Foods May be the Answer. One thing Big Food has done very well is to create global food supply chains supported by massive, efficient food production and packaging facilities—all of which has allowed them to nearly eradicate smaller competitors. In some cases, capturing virtually the near entirety of their targeted markets. This may be great for them, of course, but likely terrible for local consumers and economies, and, as we have seen, not often so great for the environment, either.

Recent world events have demonstrated the need for a more resilient and durable food supply chain. Everything for COVID, to shortages of baby formula to the war in Ukraine have driven home the glaring weaknesses of Big Food’s heavily centralized processing plants strategies, aggressively creating near monopolies in entire sectors of our food supply accompanied by extremely efficient, but vulnerable global supply chains.

IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR FOOD, COME SEE™

One of the primary ways to create much more resilient and durable food supply chains is to create a more de-centralized and distributed food supply chain. Creating hundreds of smaller food growers and processors located across our State and added to our existing larger players is a good place to start. This also creates a food supply chain in which the consumer can more easily see where their food is coming from, who's making it, and what's really in it.

Finally – There’s a huge Opportunity to Invest in the Entire Local Foods Supply Chain – Making Healthy Local Foods Available Year Round

Where the Big Food guys have really hit a home run financially is, integrating and monopolizing the entire processing, packaging, wholesaling and transport of our food. Of the nearly $2 Trillion spent on food each year, nearly $650 Billion goes to this sector.

This is where the really Big Boys reside.

Among the big meat processors are: JBS Foods with $28 Billion in annual revenues; Cargill with $43 Billion; and Tyson Foods also with around $43 Billion in annual revenues. That’s well over $100 Billion in annual revenues with just these 3 processors of just “meat”.

As to Cargill, Inc., they are the single largest privately held company in the US and are a worldwide player in the food production, packaging and transport of foods.

Among the big food packagers are: Kraft Heinz with about $26 Billion in annual sales; General Mills with $16 Billion and even Land O’Lakes has $15 Billion in annual revenues.

Land O’Lakes is a cooperative with 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 member-cooperatives, and about 9,000 employees and processes and distributes products for about 300,000 agricultural producers and is based in Minnesota. This is a model that could be reproduced in Colorado.

The US Market for frozen fruits and vegetables alone is nearly $7 Billion and projected to be over $8 Billion by 2027.

Frozen fruits and vegetables are an effective alternative to fresh as freezing locks in the nutritional content due to which frozen products remain unaltered for a long period.

This is a simple way to greatly increase the shelf life of a large number of Colorado’s local fruits and vegetables. Thus a very effective way to both be able to enjoy local fruits and vegetables all year round and - because farmers would not be forced to sell their fresh fruits and vegetables immediately at harvest to out of state wholesalers – they can sell their harvest locally over a much longer period of time and keep more of this revenue and profits local.

There are no technology or intellectual property barriers to this strategy. Our farmers just need the investment capital to create the long term assets to freeze and package their harvest locally.

This is basically just what Land O’Lakes did in the dairy and butter markets.

According to the Colorado Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association, which represents more than 260 members throughout the state, Colorado produces nearly $485 million in revenue to Colorado at the “farm gate” and is multiplied as it goes through the distribution chain. Over 90,000 Colorado acres are in fruit and vegetable production.

With your Crowd Investment dollars, this is just another way we can change the way Colorado eats for the better.

For all these reasons, local food, wellness, Cottage Food, Small Family Farmers and Food Trucks are not just worthy of our consideration for strategic long term investments but also potentially critical to the food security of our local communities and our entire State.

LOCAL FOODS, A NATURAL CONNECTOR BETWEEN RURAL & URBAN COMMUNITIES™

From Pepperidge Farms, to Little Debbie Snack Cakes, to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, there are dozens of examples of previously small food entrepreneurs taking their culinary creations from initial experimentation at the kitchen table to tens of millions in market value.

PEPPERIDGE FARMS
Margaret Rudkin began breaking bead in 1937 for her youngest son, who was allergic to most commercially processed foods. Her son's doctor, after seeing the progress her son had made, recommended the bread to his other patients and encouraged Market to sell it to the public. Her first commercial sale was to her local grocer, Mercurio's Market. It spread from Connecticut to New York, and Margaret moved her operations from her kitchen to her garage, and just a couple years later, to a factory. Some twenty years later, Pepperidge Farms became a subsidiary of Campbell Soup Company.

LITTLE DEBBIE
Little Debbie is a brand of cookies and snack cakes created and owned by McKee Foods, a privately-held and family-owned snack food and granola manufacturer in Tennessee. McKee Foods is also the maker of Drake's Cakes, Fieldstone Bakery snacks and cereal, and Sunbelt Bakery granola and cereal. The company was founded during the Great Depression by O.D. McKee and Ruth McKee. O.D. began humbly by selling cakes from his 1928 Whippet in the Chattanooga area. As of 2013, McKee ships more than 900 million cartons of Little Debbie products each year. In 2021, McKee Foods had annual sales of $826 Million.

REESE'S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were initially created in 1928 by H.B. Reese, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman, for Milton S. Hershey's chocolate company. After seeing the success of his product, Reese left his job with Hershey to start his own candy business. Over three decades later, the Reese brothers merged the H.B. Reese Candy Company with the Hershey Chocolate Corporation in a tax-free stock-for-stock merger. Today, Reese's generates more than $2 Billion in annual sales for The Hershey Company. Today, Reese's Peanut Butter cups are number one on the list of top-selling candy brands.

We urge you potential Food Investors to watch Foods that Built America on the History Channel for more great food stories.