Our dream started out as a market farming project in the beautiful rolling hills of the Laurel Highlands in south western Pennsylvania and has blossomed into Appalachian Juice Co. and The Mountain Family Farm. We are currently operating a raw organic juice bar out of the lovely Pittsburgh borough of Shadyside, and are working on plans to develop our own farm land. Our dream encompasses many different projects that are reliant on each other to create a company that helps many individuals as well as creates a positive change in many farming and business practices. The different branches of our company support each other and grow as the business as a whole grows.
With this project we are aiming to expand our juice from retail to wholesale, as well as develop our own sustainable chemical free farm. We started the juice company after noticing many shortcomings to the current methods of production and distribution in our region and abroad. Surrounded by farmland we found it frustrating that our access to affordable produce grown sustainably and chemical free was little to none. Trying to convince farmers to change practices is no easy task. We decided we needed to provide an economic incentive to encourage conversion to sustainable practices. Rather than wait for one to appear we chose to create it ourselves. This is where our raw organic cold-pressed juice was created.
Cold pressed juice is one of the best nutrient delivery systems devised by man as well as adding a level of convenience and accessibility to produce and fruit, in turn making it more consumable and marketable. This presented itself to us as an amazing opportunity to develop our own farming further, while also providing us with the needed resources and outlets to support other local farmers, in particular veterans.
One key aspect of our juice company and its farm, The Mountain Family Farm, is that we will use our proceeds after operation to further two very necessary agriculture projects.
Project One will be to cultivate our network of local veterans and organizations and create a multi-purpose veteran outreach program primarily focusing on training veterans in sustainable chemical free farming. This will range from small weekend workshops in gardening and farming, to fully integrated job training and placement. Ultimately the goal of the company is to train local vets in our method of farming, assist them in acquiring land to farm and providing them with purchasing agreements through the juice company. In doing this we believe it will spur the next generation of farming in our region. Currently there are over 300 million people in our country today and only 150,000 of the farmers who feed them are under the age of 35. The average age of the US farmer is nearly 60 years old. With population increasing at it's current rate we are going to need some fresh blood in there soon or things will start to look dicey here in a few years. As our program develops we hope to interact with local schools to develop on site 4 season greenhouses that the children can work out of and learn the basics of gardening and food production as well as provide them with a reliable affordable source of healthy food.
Project Two is our season extension research. We have been researching and developing a wide variety practices and implementations to allow local producers to extend their growing season well into the harsher portions of our seasons. Our designs are crafted to not only be as cheap as possible to construct but also to allow for maximum production out of a relatively small space. We have combined the theories of passive an active solar heating with raised bed, square foot, and straw mulch methods. We will also be developing an array of composting methods to sustainably feed our soil and plants. These will include local community composting, composting with local businesses, vermiculture, and both hot and cold methods of composting. We believe this system of growing will allow for a longer season of production with higher yields for less cost. We believe this will invariably lead to cheaper prices to the consumer and well as a strengthened industry that can meet the needs of consumers year round.
Why Local?
Most food travels several thousand miles before it reaches your plate. This not only leaves consumers vulnerable to price inflation due to other economic factors such as the price of oil, but it also places an undo amount of stress on our ecosystems to produce and distribute food in this manner. By localizing food supplies(250 miles) you reduce the overall impact we have as a society on the rest of the world.
Why Chemical Free?
While some proponents of big agri-business will argue that chemical pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer use is safe, we at Appalachian Juice Co. have developed the opinion that they are harmful to not only our bodies, but also the environment, from which we so greatly rely on to grow our food. We also feel that by utilizing some old and new age techniques of chemical free, sustainable farming we can grow a better product for less.
Why Vets?
I became a veteran because an unnerving sense of duty that was passed on to me from several generations of soldiers before me bearing my last name. This trait is one of the most common among the veteran community. Selfless service, duty, and honor and just a few of the ethos a soldier swears to embody. Many vets returning home from war are bearing a variety of injuries, some more visible than others. These challenges can become overwhelming when coupled with economic factors like a lack of employment, but more so a lack of fulfilling employment. A secure food supply being the need it is to a community offers the returning veteran an amazing opportunity to continue to serve their community even after their official service has ended. All of these factors make developing this subset of the community into our next generation of farmers the most viable option we have while also maximizing the positive effect we hope to have on our community.
By developing our wholesale expansion in conjunction with our farm we can have an immediate impact on our communities food supply, workforce, and overall well being. For this crowd-funding project we have allotted money for both our wholesale expansion as well as our farm.
Budget:
Wholesale Licensing- $15,000.00
Four Row Seeder- $4,000.00
Three Point Tiller- $2,000.00
Raised Bed Disc Hiller- $500.00
Spreaders(seed/manure)- $1,500.00
Compost House Lumber- $1,000.00
Seed- $5,000.00
Greenhouse- $6,000.00
Irrigation $2,000.00
Other $3,000.00
Total $40,000.00
This encompasses only our bare necessities. There are still many tens of thousands that will need to be spent in developing this project to fruition. These resources will give us the essential tools to complete our wholesale transition and develop our farm and veterans outreach programs. All business plans have been completed by an MBA and are awaiting implementation.
Our Promise:
We promise to continue our business's development with the health of our environment locally and abroad, as well as the health of our product and how it relates to the health of our customers, as our number one priority.
In summation... Juice Induced Harmony.
