ABOUT US
Illinois MarketMaker is a collaboration between the University Of Illinois Extension, the Initiative for the Development of Entrepreneurs in Agriculture, the Illinois Department of Agriculture, and C-FAR. The idea for MarketMaker was an outgrowth of previous C-FAR projects exploring market opportunities for value-added meat products. The idea is to provide a one-stop shop for strategic marketing information for producers and food retailers alike. There is an abundance of marketing data available via the internet and through various trade magazines, but to a novice user it can be a bit overwhelming.
MarketMaker Background - MarketMaker was developed as an online marketing resource to give Illinois farmers greater access to regional markets by linking them with processors, retailers, consumers and other food supply chain participants. It is currently one of the most extensive collections of searchable food industry related data in the country and contains over 350,000 profiles of farmers and other food related enterprises in Illinois, Iowa, Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and New York.
All the information can be mapped and queried by the user. Each partner state has their own unique site, but all sites access a common database. This allows users to conduct multi-state searches for information. The site was created by a team of University of Illinois Extension researchers with the intention of building an electronic infrastructure that would more easily connect food producing farmers with economically viable new markets and aid in the development of quality driven food supply chains.
Creating a National Food Marketing Data Base - Taking the single state concept and expanding it into a regional and national model has the potential to significantly grow the economic impact of this marketing resource. A multi-state partnership of land grant institutions and state agricultural agencies has formed and are committing local resources to build this national network of interconnected sites of searchable localized consumer and food industry data.
Strategy for Building the Electronic Infrastructure- The states participating in the MarketMaker Network share in developing the strategies to grow and improve MarketMakers capacity as a food marketing resource. An advisory board made up of regional representatives regularly contributes to the decision making process for growing MarketMaker. Each state creates their own educational outreach program that would teach food entrepreneurs how to use the site and the basics of marketing value added food products.
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