Event Recap | Financial Literacy Workshop with Kitchen Table Consultants
Through the Local Food Economy Lab, the Alliance was thrilled to offer a free Financial Literacy Workshop last month, designed specifically for small-scale farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and food business owners. The workshop was held on August 29, 2023, at the Alliance’s new office space in San Diego, CA.
Co-hosting and leading the workshop was our longtime friend and partner, Rebecca Frimmer (she/her) of Kitchen Table Consultants (KTC). KTC is a collective of advisors passionate about supporting local food systems and providing meaningful, hands-on advising services to small businesses.
The goal of this full-day workshop was to support small-scale food business owners with building knowledge of business finance and creating standard operating procedures for managing finances at their unique businesses—as well as to provide a space for dialogue and questions for developing financial literacy as emerging entrepreneurs.
Why spaces like this are needed
Small-scale farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and food business owners in San Diego County—and everywhere—struggle to make a living and maintain viable businesses in a food system that does not uplift them.
Low profit margins and wages are common. Technical assistance and support services are limited, especially for Indigenous and people of color. Infrastructure for producing, storing, aggregating, processing, distributing, and marketing local food is scarce. And an increasingly consolidated marketplace is not only exacerbating challenges for small-scale farmers, ranchers, fishermen, food business owners, and workers, but also impacting community food security and sovereignty.
Building an integrated, inclusive, and more diverse local food economy provides pathways to reverse these trends. Investing in local farms, ranches, fisheries, and food businesses—especially those owned by Indigenous, Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, and other people of color—as well as the relationships and infrastructure needed to produce, store, aggregate, process, distribute, and market local food in our region will foster greater community wealth and create a more resilient economy.
Co-designed by farmers, ranchers, fishermen, food business owners, technical service providers, and an ecosystem of supporters, the Local Food Economy Lab is planting the seeds for a new economy, one that is built on justice and solidarity.
"Building a more resilient food supply and economy means we need to ensure that through small business ownership, diverse entrepreneurs are able to increase their income potential, achieve long-term financial stability, provide for their families, and continue enriching their communities. We need to create an integrated support system and invest in those in our community for whom traditional business development services are out of reach, with a focus on BIPOC, immigrants, women, and individuals with low income."
— San Diego County Food Vision 2030 | Objective 2: Increase the Viability of Local Farms, Ranches, Fisheries, Food Businesses, and Workers
Topics covered in the workshop included the following:
Bookkeeping best practices for data driven decision making
Understanding your financial statements: profit and loss & balance sheet
How to build a budget from scratch and measure performance
Build an opportunity assessment toolkit - is new debt worth it?
Bridge the gap between profits and cash flow
A future virtual session will be scheduled to cover the topics of lender readiness and financial pro formas. In this session, participants will have the opportunity to learn how key financial ratios and key performance indicators can help them tell their story and assess risk.
Thank you to Rebecca for sharing her incredible expertise and making topics about financial literacy that can be quite intimidating, much more accessible. And thank you to the 25 attendees who dedicated their entire day to the workshop—and for all that they do as farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and food business owners in San Diego County.
Finally, gratitude to Christina Ng (@chinitaspies) for feeding our group a delicious and nourishing meal.
We look forward to hosting more Events & Workshops supporting our local food economy in the near future!