Food Import Replacements for Nova Scotia
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My talk I'm preparing for the 2016 Nova Scotia Food Summit
Sean Myles at Annapolis Cider Company
Farmworks Investment Co-operative and the 55 local food businesses it funds
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My talk I'm preparing for the 2016 Nova Scotia Food Summit
Sean Myles at Annapolis Cider Company
Farmworks Investment Co-operative and the 55 local food businesses it funds
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To address the question of how can we make it easier to find and join a CSA, here's what we came up with in our discussion:
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HarvestHand is a small start-up company in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Our mandate is to participate in building a vibrant local food economy by providing new media solutions that help to bring together farmers and food consumers in mutually beneficial ways.
JOB TITLE
This is a part-time term position. Starts immediately.
experience using:
Applicants should be graduates of a recognized computer science training program (degree or diploma) with a concentration in web development.
Read more about HarvestHand
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As promised, here's the followup blog post from the two workshops on CSA Marketing I just wrapped up at the Guelph Organic Conference and with the CSA farms in Ottawa. I'm writing this post from a sweet cafe called Aries in Wakefield, Quebec, near Roots and Shoots Farm and Juniper Farm. Thank you to the Tommas Nimmo at Guelph Organic Conference and Robin and Jess at Roots and Shoots for making these two workshops possible. I'm excited to report that over 90 people attended the workshops.
I received many requests to do workshops on specific topics such as starting CSA's, Facebook advertising and content marketing, Google advertising etc. If you're interested in being notified about future workshops or webinars and getting our HarvestHand CSA community quarterly newsletter, add your email to our list.
CSA Marketing 101 Presentation
Printable PDF of CSA Marketing Cycle
CSA Membership Cycle and Strategic Plan Template
If you are interested in our HarvestHand CSA Software, please send me a note to arrange a time for a call.
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Big News: We'll be at Guelph Organic Conference from January 29th-31st exhibiting (the exhibitor area is free to attend and has over 130 organic exhibitors) and hosting a workshop on CSA Marketing 101- Building a Community Around Your Business-January 31st, 1:30pm-3pm (it's only $35 for adults, $15 for students to attend all the Sunday workshops, register here). The workshop is designed for farms with CSAs that are looking to grow membership, grow sales, increase member retention, improve communications, save time using online and social media tools, prioritize communications and management activities, create an overview of communications and management to share with team, and improve the overall profitability of the farm.
P.S. If you're near Ottawa,I'll be running the workshop below on February 3rd, 2016, from 2pm-4pm at the West End well for a small group of farms, register here.
Workshop Highlight Reel:
Presentation covering the management and communications practices of the most successful and profitable CSAs in Canada and US from my experience of working with over 45 CSA's and from in depth interviews of the top CSAs in North America. For example:
how CSA farm startups grow rapidly in a short period of time ($50,000 in sales to $900,000 in two years)
how farms cultivate high customer retention rates (as high as 95% with 200 CSA members)
how farms sell hundreds of CSA shares in a short period of time (as high as 500 CSA shares in two weeks)
The workshop where we will support you in outlining your CSA Membership Cycle together with the other attendees. By the end of the workshop you will be able to pinpoint what's working and what's not working for your CSA communications and management as well prioritize the key activities that will provide the best results for your farm (activities that will improve retention, sales growth, save time, improve profits etc)
Receive a CSA Membership Cycle template, worksheet, and digital resources
Have fun and depart with one clear priority and tasks that will strengthen your business and community
Register for Guelph Workshop or Register for Ottawa Workshop
Official Conference Workshop Description:
Canadians spend more time online than any other country in the world and online sales in Canada grew approximately $19 billion last year – (CIRA 2013) As farm and food businesses, how can we adapt and grow our enterprises with this change in human behavior? How can we use new media tools and community engagement strategies to save time and retain more customers? Imagine if you had all the customers you needed and 95% of your customers came back every year. How would this change your business and life? Through the lens of successful CSA farms, we will provide examples of an online marketing strategy that connects members to the farm, fosters an engaged community and increases profitability. Then we’ll give you the tools and resources to make it happen!
Speaker Bio
Duncan Ebata is a Food Community Builder at HarvestHand. Prior to helping CSA farms build their communities, retain more customers, and become more profitable, Duncan successfully started and managed the digital marketing firm Shift! Mobile Interactive, promoted and grew sales of fair trade products at Just Us! Coffee Roasters, and fostered and advised Nova Scotian startups at the Acadia Entrepreneurship Centre. He was recently nominated to be on the board of Slow Food Canada and represented Canada as a Slow Food delegate at Terre Madre 2014 in Turin, Italy. Duncan volunteers as media advisor to FarmWorks Investment Co-op advising food and farm startup’s and building food community capacity with Slow Food Youth Annapolis Valley. He regularly speaks about marketing at agricultural events and conferences – most recently Duncan spoke about branding and digital marketing at the Farmers Markets of Nova Scotia conference.
Questions
Send me a note here or call me at -1-866-542-4305