Real Food Community (RFC) is an idea that has evolved from the desire for people to have access to the best of local foods, stable jobs, friendly relationships with those in the food supply chain, and a stronger local community, both financially and socially. We have experienced the benefits of meats, eggs and raw milk and other dairy from pastured, genetically healthy animals, but we have also experienced the resistance of some to allow the free access to these health-building, nutrient dense foods. Thus, it is hard to access and many times freedoms are threatened. With more people who have convenient access to nutrient dense foods, we can change this paradigm. When the people who help that to happen are paid a living wage, we can change the world!

RFC provides freedom to conveniently access locally produced, nutrient dense foods while supporting the local economy.  As RFC grows, all benefit.  Consumers experience lower prices, increased convenience, a community full of supportive ideas and opportunities.  Farmers and other producers experience larger markets, stable incomes with growth potential, a disappearance of legal strangleholds, e.g. the sale of raw milk made legal, more liberty to process meats on the farm, and many other freedoms.  New jobs appear to help provide the networking needed to increase convenience for producers to get their products to consumers.

The RFC program:

Gives Producers like farmers, kraut makers, bakers, and others:

• A website for giving local people info about their products
• A delivery system to reach the most people in the local & regional markets
• An inventory and ordering system to organize and optimize efficient and effective product fulfillment
• A marketing system that makes strong community ties

Gives Consumers:

• A personal account on a website that populates with the most convenient means to source local, nutrient dense foods: fruits, veggies, and animal foods
• Ability to view products from specific producers, to favor some or delete others
• A single payment method for paying multiple local producers
• An option to have raw milk from the farmer of your choice delivered to your door or neighborhood pick-up site
• The ability to choose the most convenient delivery options
• Convenient and currently unavailable social networking capabilities to be effective, time efficient

Provides a new model to merge technology, proven methods of optimal food production, freedom and the entrepreneurial spirit into a localized food system that makes wonderful, trusting, safe, rewarding communities by:

• Motivate and lead people with spunk to create a new grassroots food system
• Model how to efficiently complete repetitive tasks such as managing and keeping account of food containers or setting up delivery schedules
• Pay people who build the Real Food Community a largely self-determined income--write your own paycheck and hours!
• Bring together ideas and share the best ways to solve local problems

The Solution: Raise $10K to do the Discovery Process. Discovery means determining the time, cost, and methodology needed to develop the RFC software.  Then, we need to develop relationships and marketing to raise up to $100,000 for funding RFC development so that it can be sustainable and a blessing to all.

Options: Loans, donations and investment funded from the community.

Action Steps: 
1) Send Checks for Real Food Community software development to:

Michael Taylor
3 Cherokee Trail
New Richmond, OH 45157

2) Contact:  Michael@RealFoodCommunity.com or 513-553-9868 to discuss your interest.

The RFC idea brings money into the sustainable food web by helping the local farmers and food producers, delivery drivers, organizers and managers, quality control inspectors, and educators.  It pays these workers a fair amount, handles administrative work, markets their products or services and facilitates effective communication with the consumer.  For the consumer, RFC provides a one-stop web shop for access to local foods from providers striving for high quality and nutrient density through sustainable practices.  With RFC the consumer can easily pay, in one payment, the host of people getting the food to them.

The RFC software idea has been written out on 37 pages of specifications and is at the point where a competent and up-to-date software developer needs to determine the architecture of the software design and begin the development.  Now it is in 3 major phases, the first being the biggest money producer and all of it necessary to generate money.  The bids have come in at up to $100,000 for the work of development through the first phase with the architecture necessary for the future phases. 

The RFC software development process is divided into the Discovery Process and 3 major phases.  This is further divided in the Discovery Process, which creates an outline and time line for the work with milestones and costs to achieve each of them.  So far, discussions with several development teams indicate that our first phase will cost from $60,000 to $100,000 and the whole project much higher. But, with full completion of Phase 1 the RFC program will, within 1 year, generate the revenue to pay expenses, including Phase 1 development costs.  Thereafter, Phase 2 and Phase 3 development is paid for by the profits produced.  

Discovery, with a marketing plan and website to help raise the money needed for Phase 1 development, is a total of $10,000 which will bring us to the point of having a planned out course and a system of raising money and creating awareness of the RFC program.

The upstart capitalization includes a crowd-funding model.  While this could raise all our needed funding, we are looking for various sources of funding, including developers who will lend their expertise for a future payback.  With support from a community of folks looking to use the software in the near future, we have a built in market that will spread the program like wildfire through word-of-mouth.

A matching-grant model can assist our community support goal.  With a loan from the Slow Money folks, we can double that money by using it to match dollar-for-dollar the money donated by those in the community who want to see the RFC program come to fruition.  The payback would come as our first phase is completed and money is being earned from the system.