Forum and National Portal Make Finding and Selling Food Products Online Easier
Published: Jun. 5, 2007
URBANA - University of Illinois Extension has added some new features to its Food Industry MarketMaker website -- The Buyers and Sellers Forum and the new national portal. Both were unveiled at the Value-Added Agriculture Conference in Lexington, Kentucky on June 3. The national portal website is located at national.marketmaker.uiuc.edu.
The Buyers Sellers Forum is an electronic bulletin board for food related businesses, growers and consumers. "If a farmer has a semi truck full of sweet corn, he can post a notice about it," said University of Illinois Extension specialist and MarketMaker team member, Richard Knipe. "A community starting a farmers' market may be in search of a grower of fresh strawberries. The Buyers and Seller Forum is just the place to make that kind of request."
Other examples might be a request to share freight on shipping products into a major market or finding a distributor that specializes in organic meats. MarketMaker already features many of these kinds of businesses in its extensive data base but this forum can be a shortcut if you are looking for a specific product or food related service.
The new national portal will give users one website with easy access to all of the Food Industry MarketMaker state sites. The site features a national map that allows visitors to click on an active MarketMaker state and link to a wealth of food-related marketing data for that state. "The Food Industry MarketMaker has been live since 2004 but it initially was just an Illinois site. Now there are five states with many more to be added before the end of the year." Knipe said. "We never stop looking for ways to improve and expand MarketMaker. A section profiling wineries is also being added to the site this summer."
MarketMaker is already one of the most extensive searchable food industry data sources in the country, with profiles for over 160,000 food industry businesses. MarketMaker is unique because all of the data can be mapped. "If you're looking for a farmer selling a product, a wholesaler or a grocery store, you can search for them by city, county, state or multi-state and the map will show you where they are located. Every step in the food chain is included, from farmers to processors to retailers," he said.
Note: the interactive mapping feature operates more smoothly when using Internet Explorer as a browser.
For more information about MarketMaker, contact any member of the development team:
Richard Knipe (rknipe@uiuc.edu; 309 792-2500, Darlene Knipe (dknipe@uiuc.edu; 309-792-2500), or Sandy Shetler (sshetler@uiuc.edu; 815-441-0300).
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