Why plan for growth and change, when it seems so much easier to simply react? When there is a distinct and shared vision for your community - when residents, businesses and local government anticipate a sustainable town with cohesive and thriving neighborhoods - you have the power to conserve your beautiful natural spaces, enhance your existing downtown or Main Street, enable rural areas to be productive and prosperous, and save money through efficient use of existing infrastructure. This is the dollars and sense of smart growth. Success is clearly visible in Maine, from the creation of a community-built senior housing complex and health center in Fort Fairfield to conservation easements creating Forever Farms to Rockland's revitalized downtown. Communities have options. We have the power to manage our own responses to growth and change. After all, “Planning is a process of choosing among those many options. If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us.” - Richard I. Winwood And in the end, this means that our children and their children will choose to make Maine home and our economy will provide the opportunities to do so. The Summit offers you a wonderful opportunity to be a part of the transformative change in Maine that we’ve seen these gatherings produce. We encourage you to consider the value of being actively involved in growing Maine’s economy and protecting the reasons we choose to live here.

1. Cultivating New Opportunities
for Food-Based Businesses
COMMENTS ON RETAIL, ACCESS TO CAPITAL,
AND THE ROLE OF FINANCING
DANIEL WALLACE, PROGRAM DEVELOPER
GROWSMART MAINE SUMMIT 2014

2. CEI
•Triple Bottom Line criteria.
•TA, Finance, and Policy.
•Over $950 million under
management.
•$50 million invested and
repaid over 37 year history.

3. Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Program
 Grow and expand viable farm and food businesses in Maine and
connect to markets regionally in order to create livable-wage jobs
and strengthen rural communities and working landscapes.
Lending Trend
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Farm
41%
Restaurant
2%
Retail
22%
Infrastruct
ure
35%
Other
0%

4. Retail Perspective
 Opportunity!
 Retail for the farmer really means wholesale
(retail is one piece of a value-chain)
 direct-to-consumer saturated in some parts of the state
 missing infrastructure
 Independent grocery stores – key community
assets
 Food access
 Healthy General Store Initiative

5. Access to Capital
 Farm, fish, and food businesses are not just one
sector
 Evolving sector(s) – traditional finance does not
always fit
 Gaps: early stage finance in particular
 Match capital to business need and stage of growth
 Capital stacking, including grants and equity
 Financing alone is not enough
 Investment in time and relationships
 Developing entrepreneurial capacity
 Island Employee Cooperative

6. Role of Finance & Financing Innovations
 Catalyze change
 Not about the money, it’s about the outcomes
 Build wealth in rural communities
 Develop the next generation
 Match capital type to market need; creative
structuring
 Partnership and collaboration
 Crowdsourcing; individual and impact investors;
business incubators

7. Food Planning
 50 x 60 – New England Food Vision
 Maine Food Strategy
 Think big: Maine first, then export markets
 Think value-add
 Reduce the amount of food shipped out of state and
purchased back
 Think generational transfer

8. Contact Info:
Daniel Wallace
dwallace@ceimaine.org
207-535-2916
Thank you!
CEI
 www.ceimaine.org
 Twitter: @ceimaine
 Facebook: Coastal Enterprises
Inc.