by Muphen R. Whitney
Shore Gourmet’s Roxanne Wolf readily signed on when she was conscripted by her sister Beth Brewster to leave her pharmaceutical position and take a position providing services to value-added food producers.
“I want to work to create healthy and economically stable families of fishermen and farmers and to provide services to as many value-added producers as possible,” Wolf said recently.
Wolf’s position with Shore Gourmet offers her a broad view of the value-added producer community. Shore Gourmet offers a food take-out service, a market stocked with local products, and a community kitchen available to value-added producers. From this vantage point it did not take Wolf long to discover a very prevalent problem within Maryland’s agricultural sector.
“The industry is rife with silos,” Wolf explained. “I am not a farmer or a fisherman, but it was easy to see the state of agriculture in this area and how the silo reality affects value-added producers.”
Identifying this problem gave Wolf a basis for her interest in the Chesapeake Agricultural Innovation Center where she serves on the Advisory Board. She now has a way to leverage her expertise to provide an overall view of the needs of those involved in agriculture and aquaculture in Maryland and Delaware.
“Everyone’s goal is the same,” Wolf explains. “We need to bring together academia, government agencies, non-governmental agencies, and the private sector to break down the silos.
“The Ag Innovation Center can provide the critical mass for doing this. They can bring together all the resources people need – especially the technology. Currently this industry does not take full advantage of the technology available to it. CAIC can help change that.”
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Shore Gourmet is on the Web at shoregourmetmarket.com. They are located in the Caroline Schoolhouse in Denton, Maryland. Hours, products and services, location, and contact information can be found on the Web site.
The CAIC Advisory Board Members plan CAIC’s activities that will establish the services that the Center will provide for its constituency. These programs include enhancing innovation and technology use in the agriculture and aquaculture industries in Maryland and Delaware. In addition to Roxanne Wolf, Advisory Board members are Nikko Brady, Delaware Department of Agriculture; Charlotte Davis, Maryland Department of Agriculture; Holly Porter, Delmarva Chicken Association; Andrew Rose, MidAtlantic Farm Credit; Lindsay Thompson, Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board; John Torres, Maryland Farm Bureau; Shelby Watson-Hampton, Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission; Donald Webster, Maryland Aquaculture Coordinating Council; and Richard Wilkins, Delaware Farm Bureau,