Ripe for Discussion Highlights
the true cost of food
On November 10th, 2019, diverse food leaders from the greater Grand Rapids area of Michigan came together to break down select obstacles behind the true cost of food.
the exercises
Attendees broke out into five working groups and went through a series of exercises built to identify problems, reframe them as opportunities, concept many solutions, and then refine one.
1. Facilitated Discussion and “How Might We…” (HMW) Statements
After hearing stories from our featured guests, attendees discussed where their experiences overlapped and differed. They then chose a relevant HMW statement to focus on for the session to give their team a framework for innovative thinking.
2. Crazy 8’s
This fast sketching exercise challenged attendees to sketch 8 distinct ideas in 8 minutes. It pushed them beyond their first idea and to generate a wide variety of solutions to their HMW statement.
3. Business Model Canvas or Journey Map
Attendees decided to either build out a business model canvas and think through how their solution generated during Crazy 8’s could sustain itself or a journey map of key moments in the user’s experience with their solution, from how they learn about it to how they become regular users.
Photo credit: LaFleur Marketing
example HMW statements & Solutions
HMW: How might we concisely educate consumers on the full spectrum of costs that go into food products?
Solution: A multifaceted media campaign to educate various audiences on the role of food on health, economy, affordability, climate change and flavor/taste. This campaign would be pushed out through different channels that are accessible through social and paper based mediums and strengthened through partnerships with large organizations like Spectrum Health and Community Food Ambassadors.
HMW: How might we create environments that are culturally welcoming and accessible, which reflect the communities they serve?
Solution: To engage children in culturally diverse cooking methods, representative of diverse cultural communities—including refugee communities—using local ingredients. Classes should focus on more simple, user friendly recipes and engage the parents.
HMW: How might we create environments that are culturally welcoming and accessible, which reflect the communities they serve?
Solution: To create a community based ‘train the trainer’ program to train people within communities to lead initiatives to introduce people to food that is ethical, equitable, and environmentally sustainable. The program would involve training members of the community to organize cooking demonstrations, community dinners, introductions to local food leaders, farmers market tours (plus farmers market 101 classes to prep for the ins and outs), and other classes. Those members of the community could then train others, creating a significant ripple effect.
HMW: How might we concisely educate consumers on the full spectrum of costs that go into, and the value of, food products?
Solution: A free (sign-up required) cooking demonstration at farmer’s markets that consists of several components. It would open with an introduction to the ingredient, comparing conventional and farmer’s market ingredients, both visually and with a blind taste test. A recipe would be taught in-person with the opportunity and incentive to purchase those ingredients from the farmer. The demo would include a local chef, nutritionist, and the farmer, all as resources to share pieces on the value of the products and dish.
next steps
Developing replicable, community-based educational events
Ruminate’s Community Engagement Coordinator, Sam Stroebel, is working with our research team to develop and test-run events in 2020. If you would like to share more thoughts on ideas and collaboration, please reach out to her at sam@letsruminate.org.
Developing an educational media campaign
We hear you! Our research team has been gathering information to build off of and learn from existing campaigns throughout 2019. This will be a core project of ours in 2020. We’re excited by ideas of leveraging cross-industry partnerships and tailoring one campaign to different audiences. We’ll be reaching out in early 2020 to engage partners in this effort.
