Business Investment Recipients
Business investments are one of two focus areas of the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. Grants in 2019 ranged from about $15,000 to $150,000 for new and growing agriculture, forestry, and forest products enterprises. Over $650,000 was awarded cumulatively to these businesses.
Find more information about FY19 Business Projects here. Each grantee was able to utilize Working Lands funds to fund specific business related projects.
Business Investment Grantees
Shown below according to county.
Addison County
Agricola Farm, LLC
$50,000 for Vermont-cured Agricola meats.
Footprint Farm, LLC
$14,700 for increasing capacity for wintertime produce storage and delivery.
Caledonia County
Karim Farm and Creamery
$20,000 for increasing production and expanding cheese cave for aging.
Kirby Mulch Company, LLC
$130,000 for producing high-quality mulch and soil blends from wood by-products for use in horticulture, landscape, roadside construction, and residential applications, as well as processing kiln-dried firewood.
Chittenden County
Bread & Butter Farm, LLC
$20,000 for expansion from bakery to restaurant; "true farm-to-table experience."
Fisher Brothers Farm
$20,000 for purchasing 44-quart commercial batch freezing allowing further expansion of production capacity for farm-to-cone Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream.
K.J. Pratt Logging and Tree Service, LLC
$15,000 for keeping local wood delivered to local residents.
Orleans County
Ardelia Farm & Co.
$19,910 for increasing yields via high-tunnel humidity control to minimize botrytis damage in cut sweet pea flowers.
Five Generations Farmstead Creamery
$150,000 for building a new, state-of-the-art, on-farm creamery in which, over a four-year period, milk will be processed into cheese.
Windham County
Rebop Farm, LLC
$25,000 for new farm store infrastructure.
Windsor County
Beaver Meadow Consulting
$23,600 for evaluating the scalability of an economically-beneficial milk production model to include many dairy farms operating within an existing cooperative and coordination with a larger Vermont cheese company to test whether other smaller cheesemaking companies would be willing to purchase milk at a price that is economically-sustainable for the dairy farmer.
Rockledge Farm Woodworks
$25,000 for woodenwares production expansion and marketing.
Rutland County
Gagnon Lumber, Inc.
$120,000 for extending three-phase power to the Gagnon sawmill in Pittsford, replacing diesel generation with grid power.