DATCP and USDA Announce Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program Equipment-Only Grant Recipients

MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) has partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to award 11 projects through the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) Program. The goal of the program is to build resilience across the middle of the food supply chain while strengthening local and regional food systems.

[inarticled]The 11 awardees being announced today will receive Equipment-Only grants and will join the 40 Equipment-Only grantees and 30 ​Infrastructure grantees that were previously awarded through the RFSI Program earlier this year. Collectively, the 81 projects have received $27.2 million.

RFSI grantees are engaged in projects that are expanding middle of the supply chain capacity for locally and regionally produced foods, offering more and better market opportunities to small/mid-sized producers, and increasing access to value-added processing opportunities and storage, aggregation, and distribution infrastructure.

“An efficient food supply chain is vital to keeping Wisconsin farmers thriving and putting food on the table of consumers,” said DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski. “RFSI awardees are using their grants to make innovations and improvements to their operations; develop new products for the consumer marketplace; and create new opportunities in food processing, packaging, and distribution.”

In this second round of the program, DATCP received 135 applications requesting more than $10.3 million. The 11 grant recipients and their funded projects, totaling $871,000, are:

• B&E’s Trees LLC (doing business as Embark) – Increase access to value-added opportunities for Wisconsin maple producers
• Dalla Terra Pasta – Increase market opportunities for Wisconsin agriculture through local pasta production
• Farm Happy – Purchase a refrigerated delivery vehicle to expand aggregation and distribution of local farm products to regional marketing channels
• Great Waters Nut Company – Grow the Wisconsin hazelnut industry by increasing processing capacity
• Park Ridge Organics – Enhance access to local food by increasing transportation and aggregation
• Red Rivers Finest Maple Syrup – Complete expansion to increase processing capacity
• Savanna Institute’s Go-First Farm – Unlock 120,000 lbs. of Wisconsin hazelnuts via installation of a dehydration line
• Squashington Farm – Improve transport and storage capacity to increase local food access
• The Apple Farmer LLC (doing business as Atoms to Apples) – Modernize and increase efficiency of apple cider processing at organic orchard
• Train Family Ecoprises – Capture and add value to excess and blemished produce to increase farmer profitability
• Widmer’s Cheese Cellars – Complete milk truck improvements to increase capacity and market reach throughout central Wisconsin

This awarded funding is part of the $420 million available through the USDA-AMS RFSI Grant Program to build capacity within the middle of the supply chain and support local and regional producers. For more information, visit the USDA-AMS webpage at ams.usda.gov.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.