Lowes Foods and Fort Bragg, the U.S. Army installation at Fayetteville, N.C., as well as US Foods and Foster-Caviness, which supply food to Fort Bragg, are major project partners and represent the type of large-scale retail and institutional markets the supply chains will serve.
The project includes research into supply chain issues related to such large-scale local food sourcing and distribution, plus outreach and at least one new academic course designed to help prepare NC State students for positions as buyers for sustainable agricultural products or other supply chain roles.
This project was also motivated by some earlier work with shrimpers on North Carolina's Carteret County coast. Local producers were often unable to access market channels that allow them to distribute their products profitably to the public. Shrimpers were often forced to sell product at prices that did not make shrimping a break-even proposition. This project seeks to provide insights into how to address such challenges.
