I did my Subject Matter Expert Interview with Molly Nicholie of Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP). Molly is the Local Food Campaign Program Director. ASAP is located out of Asheville, North Carolina. The reason I asked Molly if I could interview her is because I am very interested in the aspect of local foods and how to spread the word of the wonderful bounty of healthy foods we can get at farmer’s markets to the public. I enjoyed sitting down with Molly and talking with her. For more information please go to ASAP’s website – http://asapconnections.org Enjoy!
- Tell me a little about yourself, where are you from, past jobs?
I grew up in Minnesota I moved down to Western North Carolina to go to school at Warren Wilson. I graduated from Warren Wilson in 1999. My degree was in environmental studies with a focus on education, since graduating I was involved in Americorps and worked for Buncombe County Soil and Water Conservation District for a year; I was independent contractor doing trail work for a while, seasonal biological field work. More of that environmental studies deal. Then I got into teaching and education, I worked as a Preschool teacher, the education is a fun angle on it, but I still trying to find my niche on what I was trying to do. I came to ASAP February 2005, so I’ve been here for 10 years almost 11 years. I started working out with ASAP’s Growing Mind Farms to Schools Program, then doing teacher training, then switched to do technical assistance with schools, working with child nutrition directors – how to source more locally. Then about 3 years ago I took on my current position as program director of the Local Food Campaign. LFC is really about driving demand for local products, building capacity of farmers to meet that demand. We don’t do production work. We are helping farmers access different markets opportunities – helping them learn about how to sell to restaurants, for example here are some good general practices to use, or if you want to sell wholesale here’s some information about how to access that market opportunity. A lot of our work is about building connections – where do people want to buy local, where to go, what farmers markets are in the area – Using the Local Food Guide. Or local restaurants that want to buy local kale and I work with them to find some farm options to reach out to. A lot of my work is promotions of local food and farms but at the same time building those community connections to make local food systems work better.
- What three pieces of advice would you give to college students who want to become entrepreneurs with their emphasis on the agricultural field?
I wouldn’t consider myself an entrepreneur in general. Working with farmers and local food businesses as entrepreneurs is my experience. I think that especially if you are looking to sell into local food systems and working in a local agricultural economy, building those relationships and connections is the number one thing you can do. Of course having quality product and good communications are two key pieces for having good business relationships. But maintaining those relationships with consumers and buyers are key to anybody who is wanting to do a startup or maintaining their business. Part of launching a new business as an entrepreneur is how do I establish those relationships with customers or wholesale buyers. A big part of that is getting your name out in the community – whether that is having a table at a local farmer’s market or offering a table about a CSA at a local fitness center – getting your face and name out in the community so people are aware of who you are. Developing good relationships, developing a solid business plan, it takes time to build that and setting short term and long term goals, and being realistic, sitting down and crunching the numbers – what is my plan? What’s realistic, year one, year two? What are the connections I need to make? What support do I need to pull from? Whether that is area experts, consultant, other farmers or other people in the business.
- What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?
Local food promotions angle – because of our organization is always trying to figure out what is the most effective ways to promote local farms and business. I think most entrepreneurs you talk to would frame it like this as well – there are totally things that just drop dead and you can definitely write off as a failure, but also a lot of those are opportunities for you to learn and rework things in some way. There are some promotional campaigns that haven’t been as effective as others, it’s more of different angles we have tried on opportunities, we tried promotions based on seasonal products, but I think the story of the farms behind them are more effective. My experience in this role over the last 3 years is that what really resonates with consumers is the story behind the food. But focusing on just the food isn’t enough, you need the story behind the food. You can talk about how amazing the local tomatoes are, for some folks that will work but combining that with the story of those tomatoes – maybe an heirloom tomato that the family has been saving seeds for generations. Too narrow of a promotion are not always the best. We did one specific campaign with chefs where we wanted to engage them in featuring an item a month across different restaurants, everyone would be featuring tomatoes that month. I think that was one time when we were trying to build promotions across all these different places you could find tomatoes at the same time. The chefs were so busy that it was really hard to engage them to do something different than they usually do. The nice part in August is that because chefs are already doing amazing things with tomatoes around multiple restaurants. It was hard because having their business being unique and separate from other restaurants they wanted to keep some mystery to their dishes. We are always looking for new strategies for how to engage local chefs, farmers and other business folks in different ways. Folks are so limited with time. As an entrepreneur opening a new restaurant finding the time to do an extra promotions can prove to be difficult.
- Describe/outline your typical day
My typical day varies depending on the time of the year. There is a certain routine we go through during the year. This time of the year being January, means we are trying to renew all the info in the Local Food Guide so when it goes to the printer it has all the updated information; so when consumers are trying to find a local farmer’s market they don’t call the wrong number or if the farmers market has moved they have the correct address. Or trying to find a farm that did you-pick-blue berries but they no longer do the you-pick-blueberries the consumer will know. We are also working on our Business of Farming Conference which is on Feb 20th this year. We start planning this 6 months ahead of time. A lot of people think “oh your job is promotion of local food and farms, you must get to go out to farms all the time and go to farmer’s market.” I do that on my own time, I go to the farmers market on a weekly basis with my family. My typical day is centered around meetings, emails communications, and phone calls. The communications are centered around particular events or the Local Food Guide. Some of it is putting out fires – like glitches in the systems, but mainly around what projects we have going on. It’s not all the same, there are a lot of moving pieces; part of the day I may be working on the Local Food Guide, part of the day I may be working on the Conference or part of the day I may be talking to a farmer. It’s really centered around communications and planning for upcoming projects. Planning how do we keep the projects fresh, reliable, and moving forward.
- Who has been your greatest inspiration?
In my professional capacity the farmers are the biggest inspiration; watching folks keeping their farm as a thriving business. To preserve farms they need to be sustainable businesses, keeping our agricultural heritage and a source of fresh and healthy food as well. Watching an amazing amount of work people put into their farms for the promotion, and the production. I’m also the mother of 3 boys, watching their interactions on the consumer end is also really inspiring. We go to the farmers market and they know the names of all the farmers. We go to the grocery store and they say “let’s wait and buy eggs at the farmer’s market because they taste better’.
- How do you find people to bring into your organization that truly care about the organization the way you do?
I think that people who are very similar to me by being inspired by the farms in the area or people who want to support local food and farms are drawn to it. One of the really nice reasons for working with local foods is because they want to keep the money in the community, or they are able to ask farmers how the food was grown. By having all these different people across all these different backgrounds and their reasons for buying local may vary but having the value of having a source of good food and sustaining farms is priceless. I feel like I don’t have to convince people of that. Most of my work isn’t about why you should buy local. When the organization started 15 years ago that was a huge piece, letting consumers know the really important reasons to go buy local. It’s still an important message to weave through our work, I want to support local farms, how do I find local? I know local has gotten really popular, how do I know that the food is actually local? Like when you go to the grocery store and it says this is our local section – how do I know that it is really local? A lot of my work isn’t about bringing people on board for the campaign that are passionate but how do we direct that passion for the work that needs to be done and about helping define local.
- If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
I was talking to my oldest son who is 9, about what he wants to do when he wants to grow up. My dad told me “you don’t really have to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life, you have to decide what you want to do right now.” I think that my career has been trying out a lot of different pieces of what I enjoy doing. I’ve been with ASAP for 10 years and it something I enjoy. If I were to change my career path, there isn’t a lot I would change. I think focusing on education and environmental studies, I graduated from college knowing I wasn’t going to make a lot of money, having to work for a non-profit for all these years isn’t about making a huge amount of money. The connections I’ve made to get here I’ve enjoyed. I feel like there is meaning to my work. I don’t think I would change anything about my career path.
- While working with the ASAP what has been your greatest accomplishment? And why
I don’t think accomplishment as in past tense, it’s an on-going process. Just juggling all the pieces, I could say the local food guide is my biggest accomplishment, or the Conference. But I don’t feel like I can claim those as my accomplishment because we have such a great team of folks who really work together well to make those things happen. I’m the director of the Local Food Campaign but me, myself, and I, does a really small percentage that goes into that. It’s not my accomplishment, it’s the whole team of folks and partners. My accomplishment is trying to help coordinate all those pieces so they work well together, how do all those pieces fit together? It’s a constant struggle and a constant juggle but how it all comes together and how are the pieces form and complement each other. This past year I worked with Buncombe County Schools to get local watermelons on the menu for school lunches.
- What book has had the biggest impact on your life? And why?
Can I say the local food guide? Ha! No! Well I think it’s kind of a combination. Throughout my life there has been a lot of books that have played major roles. Wendell Berry is a great author, I can’t pick just one. I’m really drawn to children’s literature. Being an educator and a mother, it’s not something that is a dense commitment to read, it’s not a big life changing novel, but it captures the sentiment and the story behind something without making it overly complicated. There’s a lot that can be compact with simple story and the right artwork. Cynthia Rylant wrote Scarecrow. One of my coworkers gave this book to me before my first child was born, it’s a simple story about scarecrows and the change of the season. Framed as the perspective of the scarecrow. That captures a lot of children’s literature, simple but poignant. We have a whole library of children’s books in our office that are centered on agriculture.
