I ran into Angela Anandappa again yesterday, who's still working on the Food Systems Innovation Center, and this time she handed me a list with the names of over 1000 companies involved in food production in Kentucky. I'm supposed to be looking up the e-mail addresses for all of these companies because I guess the center has reached the point where it's ready to start recruiting people to check it out. Not so hard, except approximately half of these companies only have a partial address and many of them don't even have a listed phone number. I've also noticed that the companies that could probably benefit most from this center (like Poppy's Bakery and Anna Mary's Fried Pies) are usually the ones that have no website, no phone number and no e-mail address (that I can find). It's kind of disappointing because I'm very pro supporting small businesses, but it isn't easy.
Also, now's probably a good time to mention the Kentucky Proud Program (http://www.kyproud.com/). It's a pretty cool initiative from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture that's hopefully going to improve efforts to shop locally, which would lead to improved nutrition and according to the website it is "an investment in Kentucky's land, people and its future," which sounds pretty good to me. The website links to different Kentucky Proud restaurants, and there are lists of Kentucky Proud members and products. Obesity statistics in Kentucky are also posted, and apparently it's ranked 2nd in the United States for percentage of obese or overweight adults at 67.4%. Not good...
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