Joe and Christy Shi, of Know Your Farms LLC, in Davidson. (David Boraks photo)

By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

A pair of local food enthusiasts is hoping a growing interest in locally-grown produce and meats in the Charlotte region will help fuel their Davidson-based start-up company called Know Your Farms LLC.

Christy Shi of Davidson and brother Wes “Joe” Shi have set themselves up as a sort of middle-man between a network of Carolina Piedmont farms and local-food buying clubs in Charlotte, Huntersville and Davidson. They’re also selling their services to chefs at local restaurants who are on the hunt for local fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products.

There’s a growing interest in local food, among both farmers and consumers. Small and mid-sized farmers face the challenges of finding and delivering their goods to markets as fuel and other distribution costs rise. For consumers, there’s an expanding knowledge of the benefits of local produce, both for its freshness and for the ability to know where food comes from.

The Shis hope to succeed by bringing the two trends together. They see themselves as restoring a piece of our local food distribution infrastructure that has been lost with consolidation of the agriculture business into bigger and bigger companies. These large companies now have vertically integrated farm-to-market control of food and meat production.

With small and medium sized farms disappearing quickly, Ms. Shi says, “There is such a need for infrastructure … packing, distribution and delivery.”

MEMBERSHIP MODEL

Know Your Farms LLC has grown out of Ms. Shi’s efforts last year managing a local food club in and around Davidson. Besides stoking her interest in acquiring local food, it also helped her develop relationships with a network of farmers across the region, from fruit and vegetable farmers to those raising hogs and poultry.

She plans to keep her other job as a technology training consultant while building the business. Brother Joe is relocating to Davidson from north Georgia to help run the company.

Beginning this month, Know Your Farms is selling memberships in four local food clubs: in Davidson, Huntersville, the University area of Charlotte and Charlotte’s Plaza-Midwood neighborhood. The Shis will make one farm run a month for each club.

Members will pay an annual membership fee of $80 to join, and contribute a minimum of 4 hours of labor on some kind of a project at a participating farm, helping with picking, packaging or processing, for example. (That’s where the “know your farms” angle comes in.) The farm work also will add a social element to the food clubs, Ms. Shi said.

Ms. Shi said she knows some local food lovers won’t want the work or social elements. So they’re also selling non-working memberships for $120. The fees help cover administrative expenses; members also pay for whatever food they buy.

The clubs will have a limited number of memberships available to begin with – only 25 each. “These spots are gonna fill up fast,” Ms. Shi predicted.

Eventually, the Shis hope to expand their efforts to include supplying other local food services, such as corporate or institutional dining halls.

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

Belonging to a local food club like this requires a shift in mindset, according to the Shis. “Local food clubs provide an opportunity to break out of your routine, to get into the rhythm of local food,” says a flier the company began distributing this month. That means consuming more produce in-season, and taking what’s available in a given delivery.

But it also can mean access to food that’s sometimes hard to find, including rarer varieties of fruits and vegetables.

Eating local food can cost more than what most consumers are used to at the big chain supermarkets, though not necessarily more than at a local farmers market. The advantages, Ms. Shi says, are that “The money stays in your community, and the food is healthier.”

Eggs on most grocery store shelves, for example, are not the same as those picked up from a farm a few hours earlier, she says. And milk is fresher. Ms. Shi is working with one organic dairy that is just 15 miles away in Rowan County.

The company also has already contracted for the production of other farmers around the region, which means it will have access to nearby producers at a time when competition for local food is rising, Ms. Shi said.

Know Your Farms has an advantage right now because of its established relationships with local farmers. “So far that’s been the case because we’ve been so farmer-focused,” she said.

CHANGING OUR WAYS

Joe Shi said he knows that building a new business in an industry where there are no business models to copy can be difficult. “We’re gonna have some successes and some failures,” he acknowledges.

But, he says, the local food infrastructure was there before; that’s how we got our food. “We have to adjust it for the times. We have to bring the old infrastructure back.”

Adds Ms. Shi: “I want to help rebuild our local food infrastructure. I want to be a leader in that. … We need to develop new models of cooperation and collaboration.”

PREVIOUS COVERAGE

April 25, 2008, “4-min interview: Christy Shi on local food.” Listen to a short audio interview with Christy Shi on the growing popularity of and rationale for the local food movement.

WANT TO JOIN?

For an application, or to learn more about Know Your Farms LLC and its local food clubs, go to www.knowyourfarms.com.

General registration for clubs in Davidson, Huntersvile, the University area and Plaza-Midwood begins Friday, Sept. 5, but Ms. Shi said they’ll take registrations as soon as they begin coming in.