Analysis of Locavore Delivery Business Strategy

(This is an analysis of the business structure, marketing strategy, and operations of Locavore Delivery. For more background, check out their website and my interview with the Founder Craig Taber.)

The power of tapping into local food markets has become a mainstay of food innovators and food giants like Wal-Mart and Whole Foods. On the other end of the spectrum, working directly with a farm through a local CSA is a great way to get fresh, local produce. But what about us carnivores who want to go local?

Locavore Delivery is bridging the gap between the local food scene and the meat lovers of the Front Range, through a dynamic and customizable home delivery system. According to their founder Craig Taber, the company has seen double digit growth in revenue over the past few years. The truly surprising thing about this figure? Locavore Delivery does almost no inbound marketing. In fact, Taber attributes the company's success to word of mouth.

This marketing piece fits well into the overall strategy of LD, that being a lean organization focused on consumer satisfaction and high product integrity. The key to the organization's functional strategy in keeping both customers and producers happy is based in their core values. Commitment to valuing and maintaining personal connection with both producers and customers and having high quality product that is rooted in animal welfare and environmentally responsible practices form the basis of the business.

Locavore Delivery is at its operational core a logistics business. By ensuring on-time delivery of product, positive and timely interactions with producers and processors, and careful management and maintenance of cold chain and food safety protocols, a baseline of reliability buttresses the company's primary selling point: great local meat. By offering a one-stop shop for local meat products at an affordable price, LD's differentiator is a combination of convenience, quality, and the extra special feeling of participating in a truly local transaction.

One of the interesting strategic decisions which Craig spoke to me about was the exclusion of any particular certification or labeling schemes in conjunction with his products. By eschewing the trendy, marketing-friendly labels such as USDA Organic or 100% Grass Fed
Locavore Delivery is making a statement. It is not as simple as valuing "Local" above all other considerations. Craig pointed to a specific example wherein a producer was ineligible for a certification due to what came down to a technicality. But this was incidental. Instead of relying on certifications whose integrity is potentially subject to political vagaries, LD has a personal relationship with each producer. The service's customers have the opportunity to physically visit the site where the animals were raised, which for a select but growing class of sustainability-minded consumers, is the only way to go.

Analysis of MAD AG Business Strategy

(This is an analysis of the business structure, organizational behavior, strategy, and ethics of Mad Agriculture. For more background on Mad Ag, read their website and my interview with the Founder Phil Taylor.)

Phil Taylor's Mad Ag non-profit is a unique non/for-profit hybrid as described by Phil himself. The capacity to rapidly pivot and spin off for-profit models based on the success of research and development fostered by the not for profit side of the organization is a core competency for Mad Ag. The strategy of diversifying revenue streams, which Phil mentions explicitly in the context of farming, is obviously also being implemented at Mad Agriculture.

The two technical innovations which may have a marketable potential are regenerative heritage grain cultivation and regenerative animal pasture supplement. [Check out this link if you're not familiar with the concept of "regenerative agriculture".]

Heritage and perennial grains have gained notoriety and buzz recently, and by partnering with the Noble Grain Alliance, Mad Agriculture is getting in on the grain train. The perennial grain kernza has been used in Patagonia Provision's Long Root Ale, a product whose appeal aligns with the regenerative agriculture movement. By choosing a perennial wheat instead of an annual, Patagonia is supporting agricultural practices which sequester carbon much more effectively in addition to reducing erosion. As interest in heritage and perennial grains grows, Mad Ag will be well positioned to help expand genuinely regenerative production alongside the Noble Grain Alliance.

The potential competitive advantage in forming a new category like "Regenerative Pasture Supplement" is a substantial incentive for innovation, alongside a substantial risk. The new product category's value chain is defined by sequestering carbon while avoiding negative externalities such as overfishing, soil erosion, and poor animal welfare. Additionally, by using food waste as a food source for the black soldier flies which eventually end up in the product, this innovation embodies the circular economy concept.

Learn more about this process at Mad Agriculture's website.

This ethics-driven product has the potential to radically change how we think about feeding animals. By redirecting the derivations of major inputs to socially and environmentally responsible sources, Mad Agriculture is poised to deliver high value to its customers while simultaneously laying the groundwork for reorienting two major sources of food-related environmental problems, namely GHG emissions associated with conventional grain production, and overfishing for fish meal production. It is innovations like this that will help us transition to the dynamic and sustainable food system we need in order to f eed the world's growing population .