WHAT IS THE 100 MILE MARKET?

The 100 Mile Market is the infrastructure required to deliver locally grown and locally processed foods to local consumers….. 

This concept includes:

1. Food Service Channel
2. Consumer Retail Outlet(s)
3. Centralized Purchasing and Distribution
4. Contract Processing Facilities (New Products)
5. Education and Awareness Programs

The 100 Mile Market is a Food Service concept which provides larger institutions such as Universities, Colleges, Hospitals, Hotels, Restaurants, etc. with a single source supply of local food products.   This function will provide the required critical mass of production and processing to ensure long term continuous supply for customers and long term economically continuous markets for local growers and processors.

The 100 Mile Market is a Supermarket concept which provides farmers, producers, growers and artisans within 100 miles of a metropolitan centre, a year-round, seven days a week channel of distribution to urban consumers seeking healthier, more nutritional alternatives to food processed, chemically treated, packaged and shipped thousands of miles before it reaches their table.

The 100 Mile Market will be positioned at conventional supermarket (e.g. Loblaws / Sobey’s) pricing, but at a superior level of service and education to allow broader access for consumers than current specialty channels such as Whole Foods or Pusateri’s.  

The 100 Mile Market will carefully select vendors to ensure quality and health standards, organic compliance when quoted, appropriate fertilizer and chemical application, freshness and nutritional content. There is an opportunity to develop a 100 Mile Brand for vendors who would not otherwise have the resources or marketing to develop and support their own brand. A contract processing facility will be made available for beginning operators to establish their products and develop new products under stringent quality controlled conditions. Producers and processors can avoid prohibitive initial capital investment in plant and equipment until their product is successfully launched.

The 100 Mile Market Brand Personality will be – real taste, freshness, flavour, nutritional value and affordability. The return to local produce will be accompanied by the application of the latest techniques and thinking in healthy nutrition. Farmers and growers will be encouraged to add new varieties such as heirloom vegetables for which they currently have no viable outlet outside local weekly markets or road-side stands. New approaches will be investigated such as high-rise urban farms using cutting-edge hydroponics technology and energy generation methods for the freshest delivery to consumers.

The 100 Mile Market experience will be an informed selection of food choices, clear understanding of nutritional values, available help to make those choices, and a welcoming, clean environment. There will be regular informative seminars, tasting opportunities and vendor exposition days.

The 100 Mile Market Logistics will consist of a Purchasing and Distribution Centre on the periphery of the metropolitan centre to minimize distance-to-market delivery and maximize controlled storage and handling before replenishment of the urban store(s). Zero tolerance food safety and quality control standards will be strictly enforced to ease the consumer’s mind.

The 100 Mile brand lends itself to line extension. 

• 100 Mile Market Kitchens within a store to
  highlight seasonal meals
• 100 Mile Market Restaurant will seek chefs to
  prepare season menus
• 100 Mile Market Street Vendors
• 100 Mile Art and Design Gallery
• 100 Mile Market Carbon Credits

The 100 Mile concept is being developed by a founding group led
by Albert Knab, Paul Knechtel and Chris McKittrick. For investor information please contact Paul Knechtel. The 100 Mile Market corporation, brand and domain names are already trademarked and registered.

The consolidation and globalization of the food industry infrastructure are driven by the maximization of cost reduction and economies of scale which in turn has driven the re-engineering and re-design of fresh and processed food for maximum shelf life, appearance and transportability. The primary casualties are the primary producer, the end consumer and the environment.

The primary producer has lost a way to market, is forced to grow crops which challenge the ecological sustainability of the land through a combination of monoculture, GM varieties, pesticides and fertilizers, and the family farm can no longer compete outside the scope of the multinationals.

The end consumer generally has access to food which has declined in nutritional values of up to 40% in the past 20 years (source : USDA), and flavour. The only current access for the nutrition-wise consumer is through seasonal / sporadic farmers markets, or specialty, high-priced grocery stores.  Exposure to food safety issues also get magnified where outbreaks occur in large-scale processing plants

The environment suffers from the challenge to ecological sustainability of farming methods, the use of millions of barrels of oil to support the logistics of millions of miles of unnecessary "food" miles, excessive packaging and storage costs.

Given that the following inconvenient truths exist:

• Local Food is in extremely short supply, hard to get, and very limited in variety
• Most Consumers would buy local food if it were both available and reasonably priced.
• The existing grocery and food channels cannot or will not
  supply locally grown and processed foods using their existing business models
• Rural economies are atrophying across North America and
  need renewal
• Our food supply is increasingly at risk of contamination in the current mega-systems model.
• Our food safety and security is eroding as we continually
  neglect local producers and rely more and more on
  transnational supply models.
• Nutrition is becoming more important – We are what we eat!!
• Environmentally sustainable food production is an imperative
  not an option

Why don’t we give ourselves a convenient option –
The 100 Mile Market

Summary