Our guest today works with architects, engineers, farmers, and city planners to create buildings that come alive and are a source of food for people living in the area. But growing thousands of plants indoors with building restrictions and putting together all the stakeholders quickly complicates things. 

Enter disruptor Dawn Parks, CEO & Owner of The Alternate Edge Consulting, who is also a conductor of these big projects. She knows how and when to engage the different stakeholders to make food sustainability a reality.   

 

 Key Takeaways: 

• Nearly 19 million people in the US don’t live near a grocery store.   
• For funding, people rely on the government agencies, which are very limited in what they can provide in terms of funding.   
• The main ingredient for disruption is thinking outside the box and looking for technologies that could fit together which haven’t been thought about before.   
• The government agencies have to provide an ROI back to the government, prove the budget every year and not get cut off.    
• Status Quo of food sustainability remains its location/geographic specific. Because of the history of the low-income area, high crime rate or lower socio-economic area, a lot of retailers/grocery store owners don’t move in and/or take a risk doing so.    
• The problem also remains with getting food to the consumer’s location in the US. In other cases like sending food outside the country, the food has to go through aid agencies that get caught up in a political situation where the food never reaches the people it’s intended for.    
• Climate change also contributes to the problem and impacts the vegetation which has an impact on how the crops grow and what needs to be fed to the live stocks.    
• Technology along with data can help make better decisions for everyone to be more productive and profitable.   
• How’s the disruption happening now? Understanding the core problem, the local community and their needs and working towards what’s needed help to overcome the food deserts. 

 

Quote of the show: 

7:34 to 7:55 

“The grocery stores aren’t moving in and those that do move in are taking bigger risk. Because there isn’t a lot of retailers, might be higher crime rate, might be a socio economic area, so then if you have $40 and need to feed 5 people, it’s easier to go to McDonalds’ than go buy broccoli and lettuce. “  

Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnparks/ 
• Company Website:  https://edgesustainability.com/ 

  

 Ways to Tune In: 

• Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption 
• Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 
• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlD

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