MarketMaker Focus Group - Michigan-Session II

8 December 2009
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Growers Exposition

Dear MarketMaker Focus Group Participant,

We have asked you to participate today in order to help us learn how to make MarketMaker a more useful tool for the food industry.

In the on-line questionnaire that follows, you will be asked to complete specific activities using MarketMaker, to reflect upon your experience, and to answer specific questions about your experience.

Your feedback is very important to us! In order for your input to be as useful as possible we need you to be as honest and forthcoming as possible. If you see areas for improvement, then please let us know. If you have suggestions on how particular features of the site might be better presented or if you wish that other features were available, please do not hesitate to let us know. The network of more than 15 states that support MarketMaker will only benefit from your frankness.

Once we have completed the computer lab session, we will allow you to compare notes and engage in a group discussion.

Please now proceed with the remainder of the questionnaire.

In the following section you will be asked to perform four separate activites using MarketMaker, to reflect on your experience, and to provide feedback on what you like or dislike about MarketMaker. You should expect to spend 10-15 minutes on each activity.

The long winter finally got to you. You decided to pull up your stakes and relocate to a warmer location, Georgia. Friends and family are important to you, but so is being able to locate fresh, locally-grown food. Make a list of the six most important foods to you and your family and use the Georgia MarketMaker website to locate at least one source of as many of them as possible. While you're at it, map the places where you can find them.

Your Aunt Martha and Uncle Henry live on a farm near Buchanan, Indiana. Their daughter, Olga, has spent the last two years at the University of Michigan, where she was working on a dual major in medieval history and Soviet philosophy.

Uncle Henry recently lost his job at the local plant that supplied hood ornaments to Buick. Aunt Martha is holding everything together with her job at the local QuickMart.

Olga is planning to put her studies on hold, return to the farm, and help her parents on the farm. She would like to help her parents convert their farm to organic production and is looking for a market for high-end organic vegetables.

Help her locate restaurants, farmers markets, and small retail grocers in affluent areas of Ann Arbor (Washtenaw County). Create lists and map them out.

It's been three years since Olga left college and she has been very successful with her business. She enjoys business so much that she is considering returning to college to pursue an Masters Degree in Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. But, she'd like to first pay off existing student loans and put away some cash. The farm is now USDA Organic certified.

Olga grew fond of her morning coffee and croissant while at the university...so much so, that she figured out how to make them herself while back on the farm. Friends and family think she ought to consider making them and selling them alongside her organic vegetables. She thinks this might be the key to her getting back to her neglected studies.

Using the Michigan MarketMaker site, help Olga find target markets for her delicious fresh croissants. Now, help her find potential target markets in Indiana or Ohio.

Olga’s croissants were a hit! She made a tidy sum, allowing her to return to complete her studies. She turned over the operation to Aunt Martha, placing her on her first post-Masters degree job where she has parlayed her farm-based business experience into a job as purchasing agent for a prestigious exclusive private college’s food service. These spoiled rich kids are used to eating good, very good (some only eat things like grass-fed beef and organic bok choy).

Her job is in Boulder, Colorado. Help her find multiple sources of grass-fed beef, bok choy, and other interesting food that you think might appeal to these sophisticated palates. Find something not currently grown in Colorado that might appeal to them.