Branding, Surveys, CSA, Wireframe Comps, and a Talk

BRANDING: After fretting over a name for my thesis, I am pleased to say I came up with a name I am really pleased with. I was sitting @ Dogmatic eating a gourmet lamb sausage with mint yogurt sauce and then BAM, FRECIPES. To me, Frecipes reminds me of being "fresh" and also hints and recipes. It's pretty fun to say out loud. I've included some sketches and logo concepts below.

SURVEY: I sent out another survey to get a feel of what kind of person eats local. I put together a quick 10 question survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/25R7ZVR) using surveymonkey. I sent it out to all my Facebook contacts (thank you to all who took the survey) and posted it on the Brooklyn Food Coalition NING network I am a part of (http://brooklynfoodcoalition.ning.com/). I received 53 responses. Take a peek at the survey (link above) and here's a summary of the responses:

  1. 63% Female
  2. 50% Age 25-30
  3. 75% get their produce from Farmers' Green Market
  4. 60% say they buy local because it tastes better
  5. 62% start with the ingredients first and then they search for a recipe that matches with their ingredients
  6. 92% would shop more at the green market if they knew what to do with the ingredients
  7. 43% say the quality of the produce is the deciding factor when purchasing, not really the price. Some other comments people had:
    1. "I love a good story. Any specialized information about the produce is a bonus."
    2. "Sentiment for the vendor"

I would assume mostly college educated, or higher, women shop at the green market because they are the ones preparing the food most of the time. Money doesn't seem to be of concern when purchasing and quality of the produce is the most important. They are aware local foods taste better, since it's not being specially bred to survive being transported hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. People also love a good story and would love to know where their food comes from.

CSA: I am pleased to announce I've taken the initiative to sign up for a CSA. There is usually a waiting list to get into a CSA and to my luck, the Clinton Hill CSA in Brooklyn sent me an email informing me of openings. Here's their site: (http://www.clintonhillcsa.org/). I'm really going local.

WIREFRAME COMPS: I've begun to layout what I would like my site to look and function like. These are just really rough comps and are definitely a work in progress. See the PDF below.

TALKS: I work a lot with The New School PR department and do a ton of freelance photography for events, talks, conferences, and gallery openings all over the New School. It gets me out to these events that I normally wouldn't go out to and it's proven to be a great place to network. This past Thursday, 25 Feb 2010, I had the honour of meeting Deputy Secretary of the USDA Kathleen Merrigan, her boss? Barack Obama. She spoke at the New School about the USDA's new Local Food initiative "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYFKYF). I also met Thomas Forster, a professor at the New School and teaches Food Policy. He is also an active member of the Brooklyn Food Coalition (http://brooklynfoodconference.org/2009/06/thomas-forster-5-reasons-why-new-york-city-is-ground-zero-for-food-system-change/). There were a lot of city and state government officials, NGOs, at the talk. I met Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director of CENYC (Council on the Environment of New York City), he is basically the head of all the Green Markets in NYC. Marcel's wife works at McCann Erickson and she is working with General Mills on a local recipe web destination. I will be consulting with all of them and tapping their knowledge of sustainable agriculture through my thesis process. The USDA has 500M in grants and loans for sustainable agriculture. The final written form for my thesis will be a grant for funding.

AND...
I've been meeting with Davy Hughes, manager of the Union Square Green Market. He's developing a game that revolves around food and we've been bouncing ideas off of each other on game play dynamics. He sent me an email the other day with the idea of starting a local food film festival. He's been really great! Here's an excerpt of his email:

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These films are short, quirky, off-beat movies that highlight market bounty and the color therein. The color therein of course being both the diversity of local, fresh product AND the diversity human characters and interactions. The confluence of these two market aspects is where film ideas should germinate.

Films should leave the viewer with a strong sense of Union Square Greenmarket: a place worth frequenting, a place where the unexpected can happen, a place where people interact and connect with each other in a friendly, relaxed environment and of course a place to buy healthful, delicious food.
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The film festival would probably air sometime near the end of summer, perhaps in Union Square.
 

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