ARC worked with The Reinvestment Fund (TRF, and the talented Andee Mazzocco) to create a report that would make some highly complex research more accessible. The piece examined a model of the local supply chain for meat products, to help trace it back beyond the retail sector and through processors, to the food producers themselves.
ARC took an intensely technical research document, broke it down into digestible pieces, and translated it into a format that a layperson could begin to understand.
The model does not represent the actual flow of products through the supply chain, but rather identifies economic relationships that would minimize the distance that meat must travel from farms to processors—at multiple stages—before it is distributed to wholesale and retail outlets. The report covers a test area of agriculturally significant portions of Greater Philadelphia. The goal of the document was to help TRF identify new objectives for lending and technical assistance that would have a direct impact on how a local industry sources its products.
It was fascinating to become intimately acquainted with the excellent research capacity at TRF and its potential breadth of impact.
ALISON ROONEY Communications 