Speaking of incredible opportunities for small local food businesses (meaning the Dekalb Market contest we wrote about yesterday morning) here’s another. The New York chapter of Slow Money is putting on this city’s first “Slow Money Entrepreneur Showcase” on May 14 from 1 to 6 pm at The Commons in downtown Brooklyn, and they’re looking for the 10 food-makers, farms or other small food-related businesses (that’s you) that will be allowed to present their business plans to potential investors, food activists and peers (that’s us). You can submit your business or idea by March 30 right here and learn more about the event here.
For those that don’t know Slow Money, it’s the brainchild of Woody Tasch, whose book Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered was foreworded by none other than Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food. Tasch is the former chairman of Investor’s Circle, a nonprofit network of investors, venture capitalists, and foundations that funded sustainable businesses.
In his book and as president of Slow Money he suggests that instead of getting the expected X percent returns from typical investments in businesses all over the world whose ethics may not meet your own, invest your money into a local business within a 50 mile region of where you live, like a start-up farm or bakery that uses local grain or oyster grower. You might make a smaller return and it might take longer, but part of it will be returned in the form of bettering your own community economically and culturally and maybe even your quality of life and your daily meals, for that matter. Of course, we’re seriously paraphrasing here, so we suggest you actually listen to this radio interview with Tasch, who lives in northern New Mexico, by none other than Edible Santa Fe.
