Category Archives: Readings

Can a Small Agricultural Processor Compete Globally?

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Our question today is “Can a Small Agricultural Processor Compete Globally”? The answer we want is yes. Now, how does a small agricultural processing company compete in this fast pace, high tech, global market place with multinational corporations? Every agricultural producer has heard it said that for their commodity to return a higher price they just need to export more. Or you’ve also heard farmers say, “our problem is not over production it is under consumption”.

Let’s look at exports and what Graceland Fruit has found works. I would like to suggest there are three things one must have to succeed. There, of course, are others but for today, I believe these three are critical: Product, Plan and Persistence.

Authors: Don Nugent
Publisher: U.S Department of Agriculture
Year: 2,002

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Growing your Local Food Business in North Carolina

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This guide was created to provide a comprehensive introduction to the regulations in North Carolina that are relevant to farm and food businesses, with a particular focus on small-scale, direct-to-consumer sales, and specialty operations. This guide is divided into sections as shown in the table of contents. Some sections are further divided by product and jurisdiction (e.g., federal and state). Where possible, contact information for agency staff has been provided so readers may seek additional information.

Authors: Michelle B. Nowlin
Publisher: Carolina Farm Stewardship Association
Year: 2,012

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Social Marketing for Small Businesses

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The publication explaining how social media are profoundly transforming marketing practices and why this matters for Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries – provides background information on the origins of social media; reviews main tools and methods such as blogging, social networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, and content sharing methods; discusses importance and benefits of using social media by exporting SMEs; suggests that strategies need to be developed to take advantage of social media in the export-marketing context and describes how to design such strategies; discusses how to measure the impact that investment in social media has on the business, offers a set of indicators and targets, and the ways to measure performance; includes examples from various social media platforms and case studies from selected developing countries.

Authors: Mark Hillary, Thomas Hess
Publisher: International Trade Centre (ITC)
Year: 2,014

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Customer Service Strategies That Work

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Customer service is an organization’s ability to meet its customers’ needs and desires, while consistently exceeding their expectations.

To ensure that your business is customer-focused, it is important to create a comprehensive customer service plan. Writing down this plan will help ensure that providing consistently strong customer service becomes a habit.

A customer service plan should have five key components:

  1. Customer Needs, Wants and Expectations
  2. Customer Service Goals and Objectives
  3. Customer Service Policies
  4. Employee Training Policies
  5. Customer Service Evaluation

Authors: J. Kelly
Publisher: Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
Year: 2,016

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