$500k Startup Fund announced for Local Food Businesses

$500k Startup Fund announced for Local Food Businesses

11 February 2013

Bucky Box, a software company based in Wellington, have announced a $500k fund for startups and early stage businesses which are operating local food distribution enterprises.

The company has teamed up with partners from around the world to put together a package of support including IT, small business support, a white paper on local food enterprise, and more. They’re delivering the fund through The Local Food Startup Challenge which was announced on 6 February.

The Local Food Startup Challenge aims to get more small food businesses started to help build the cultural and logistical infrastructure for a food system which is beginning to feel the stresses of over consumption, food waste, climate change, increasing energy prices, damaged soil health and dwindling nutritional foods on the shelves.

Challenge Coordinator,
Sam Rye commented, “We’ve had a wave of interest from local food enterprises around the world for our software, but we saw that many of the early stage people were struggling to get things started and profitable. We decided to put together the various elements they needed to succeed into one easytohandle package, and we thought a 3 month challenge would be a great way to do it.”

The local food movement has been growing in New Zealand, and is already in full flight around the world especially in the countries where food has become highly industrialised such as the US, UK & Australia.

Rooted in a ‘fair deal’ for farmers, less chemical use on the farms, and our overreliance on cheap oil throughout food production, storage & transport, the movement sees entrepreneurs & food producers taking up the challenge to embrace the internetage and go direct to consumer meaning they can deal with smaller quantities with less infrastructure.

“We believe there’s a huge array of entrepreneurship and creativity in New Zealand. We’re looking to unlock some of those Kiwi traits in tough economic times for our country, and give people the opportunity to do something for themselves, their whanau and their communities. Fresh Food is a great leveller, and has huge potential to address some of the challenges we see with health, land use, water quality and more. What better place to get started with a micro enterprise?” says Rye from Bucky Box.

The Local Food Startup Challenge is an opportunity for people, regardless of their experience, to have a go at building a business to serve a real need in society. With a $500k Startup Fund and series of Partners supporting the project, it looks set to deliver on Bucky Box’s vision of catalysing local food, globally.

If you’re keen to be involved or simply find out more, you can see The Local Food Startup

Challenge site at: http://challenge.buckybox.com

Bucky Box has already received international recognition from the likes of Fast Company, Idealog, Unlimited Magazine and Springwise, and is seeking interest from Partners who are interested in supporting the Challenge to grow and add value to the Challenge Entrant’s experience.

Find out the back story about the challenge on Bucky Box’s blog or join the conversation on their Twitter feed. ENDS

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