Fountainworks provided strategic guidance and facilitative leadership in Partnership with the Center for Environmental Farming Systems to create the first-ever state framework for building a local and sustainable local food economy.

The initiative involved well over 1,000 North Carolinians, a 75-person advisory team, six regional meetings across the state and nine policy working groups over the course of 12 months. These strategies, and other outcomes of the process, are detailed in From Farm to Fork: Building a Sustainable Local Food Economy in North Carolina, (http://www.cefs.ncsu.edu/whatwedo/foodsystems/f2fstatewideinitiative.html) a 100-plus page comprehensive guide to statewide action – and is considered a national model in this sector.