CSA is dynamic in so many ways. Farmer's receive working capital to invest into the soil, and members become part of a sustainable community, sharing in the bounties of the harvest.
Our work is grounded in shared values of sustainability, community
Inspired by nature, our weekly menus are prepared using local farm foods.
Ordering from us helps reduce your carbon footprint. We pack our foods in re-usable glass containers, compost waste, and purchase from local farms.
Our ingredients include:
- organically farmed produce, grains, and nuts
- pasture-raised meats, eggs, and dairy products
- unrefined sweeteners
- traditional fatsSustainability is a vision that guides the goals of our organization and our clients. Financial stability, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility are the 3 key facets to our sustainable future. Here at Winding Trail Consulting, LLC we believe that these three facets are not opposing goals of which trade-offs need to be considered at every step. We believe they are symbiotic. Each aspect promotes the other for the greater good of the whole system.
Our mission is to promote sustainable communities through a triple bottom line and system approach (economical, social, and ecological). Please join us in this mission to make our region an better place to live, work, and play.
Business Concept: Creating a Learning Organization
Ecological Principle: Evolution
Organizations evolve following the same principles as nature. Through observation of our natural world and our organizations we can find many parallels that quickly translate into effective lessons. A learning organization is a fantastic model for creating a workplace culture that is innovative, adaptive, and engaged. Learning organizations encourage their employees to explore and try new ideas. They offer a guiding hand to their stakeholders to drive business success, without narrowing the scope of success to that only owned by the administration.
As the environment, markets, and world around us change rapidly we must create organizations that encourage awareness and cooperation across departments and even externally with partnershihp organizations. With this learning culture an organization builds its capacity to adapt and change while discovering new ways of doing business.
Ecological Principle: Evolution
Organizations evolve following the same principles as nature. Through observation of our natural world and our organizations we can find many parallels that quickly translate into effective lessons. A learning organization is a fantastic model for creating a workplace culture that is innovative, adaptive, and engaged. Learning organizations encourage their employees to explore and try new ideas. They offer a guiding hand to their stakeholders to drive business success, without narrowing the scope of success to that only owned by the administration.
As the environment, markets, and world around us change rapidly we must create organizations that encourage awareness and cooperation across departments and even externally with partnershihp organizations. With this learning culture an organization builds its capacity to adapt and change while discovering new ways of doing business.
Business Concept: Stakeholder Engagement
Ecological Principle: Diversity
When we work together in teams or groups we expect something more than if we all sat apart in separate rooms working on the same problem. When we interact with other people, our environment, or between organizations we create a relationship. Ecology tells us that out of these interactions come emergent properties. This is when the sum is greater than the 2 parts.
Brainstorming, dialoguing, and team building activities are all ways to create emergent thoughts, ideas, and solutions that would otherwise not exist without interaction. Diversity plays a key part in the potential of what can emerge. The greater diversity of people, organizations, and resources you have working, the more potential for creative solutions. We can harness the power of unique mindsets, different backgrounds, and new perspectives.
Ecological Principle: Diversity
When we work together in teams or groups we expect something more than if we all sat apart in separate rooms working on the same problem. When we interact with other people, our environment, or between organizations we create a relationship. Ecology tells us that out of these interactions come emergent properties. This is when the sum is greater than the 2 parts.
Brainstorming, dialoguing, and team building activities are all ways to create emergent thoughts, ideas, and solutions that would otherwise not exist without interaction. Diversity plays a key part in the potential of what can emerge. The greater diversity of people, organizations, and resources you have working, the more potential for creative solutions. We can harness the power of unique mindsets, different backgrounds, and new perspectives.
Business Concept: Partnerships
Ecological Principle: Symbiotic Relationships
Every partnership (human to human, human to organization, organization to organization, human to environment, organization to environment) can be classified and described as one of 4 basic ecological relationships. These are:
Mutualistic: (++) Both benefit, yet require eachother's interaction for that benefit.
Commensalistic: (+0) One benefits, other is not harmed nor helped.
Parasitic: (+-) One benefits, other is harmed.
Ammensalistic: (-0) One is harmed, other is unharmed but does not benefit.
Understanding the qualities and characteristics of these relationships will help us change as well as promote more positive partnerships. Strip your stigma of what you think these mean (like parasitic) and understand that they all have good and challenging qualities. Figure out which is best for each interaction.
Ecological Principle: Symbiotic Relationships
Every partnership (human to human, human to organization, organization to organization, human to environment, organization to environment) can be classified and described as one of 4 basic ecological relationships. These are:
Mutualistic: (++) Both benefit, yet require eachother's interaction for that benefit.
Commensalistic: (+0) One benefits, other is not harmed nor helped.
Parasitic: (+-) One benefits, other is harmed.
Ammensalistic: (-0) One is harmed, other is unharmed but does not benefit.
Understanding the qualities and characteristics of these relationships will help us change as well as promote more positive partnerships. Strip your stigma of what you think these mean (like parasitic) and understand that they all have good and challenging qualities. Figure out which is best for each interaction.
Business Concept: Adaptive Leadership
Ecological Principle: Self-Organization
Nature organizes itself into the moste efficient, and more beneficially, the most effective. In the business environment it takes a different and deliberate style of leadership. This leader is a role model of hard work, trust, autonomy, and innovation. There are some very successful organizations that have adapted this flat hierarchy for an organizational structure allowing for employees to create, adapt, change, and own their work. These enthusiastic employees take ownership of their jobs, invest in their company, and know that their co-workers will do their part.
An adaptive leader values process over task and recognizes whole system consequences. This leader is purposefully facilitating the evolution of their organization to adapt to the industrial environment, political climate, and market demands.
Ecological Principle: Self-Organization
Nature organizes itself into the moste efficient, and more beneficially, the most effective. In the business environment it takes a different and deliberate style of leadership. This leader is a role model of hard work, trust, autonomy, and innovation. There are some very successful organizations that have adapted this flat hierarchy for an organizational structure allowing for employees to create, adapt, change, and own their work. These enthusiastic employees take ownership of their jobs, invest in their company, and know that their co-workers will do their part.
An adaptive leader values process over task and recognizes whole system consequences. This leader is purposefully facilitating the evolution of their organization to adapt to the industrial environment, political climate, and market demands.
Ecological
Principle: Limits to Growth
Traditional
Economics tells us to grow, grow, grow.... Ecological Economics recognizes
limits to growth and other guiding principles that allow for true costs to be
accounted for. With a triple bottom line approach (people, planet, and profit)
sustainable business goals can be reached over a much larger time scale. The
short sighted view of traditional business practices have created a world of
fossil fuel dependence and economic recession. Limits to growth are realized by
identifying the slow variables in our economic system. The housing bubble, dot
com fiasco, and the current economic recession could have been avoided by a
simple step back and bigger picture view of how we as businesses and individuals
interact with our economic system.
Does
this mean you shouldn't grow your business? Of course not. This means there is
a better way to grow your business consciously and deliberately. It also means
that you are not setting your business up for long term failure for short term
gain.
Ecological
Principle: Locality
Community
could be a physical place or an online group of people connected by a common set
of interests and values. Does your business have a sense of place? Meaning, is
your business or organization grounded by the cultural norms set by its
community? For marketing success we must understand the community system that
our business is nested within.
With
each locality and community there are finite resources, available opportunities
(defined by niches not filled), and social restraints. If your business
operates across several communities than your system becomes that more complex
and these resources, opportunities, and restraints must be attended to in each.
The rule here for entrepreneurs is simple is better.
Claire’s Restaurant – A Community Supported Success Story
Last night, my wife and I joined Vermont’s Central and Northeast Kingdom communities in celebrating the first anniversary of Claire’s Restaurant in Hardwick, VT, a place that quickly established itself as a “must stop” experience for those in the area.
Claire’s was founded in May 2008, after four years of effort by its four co-founders. The restaurant employed a community supported business model to raise the necessary capital – 50 community members invested $1,000 each in exchange for restaurant credits. This intimate connection to the community has proven a better-than-expected success, as one of Claire’s owners indicated last night that during its first year it achieved patron numbers projected for its fourth year – nearly every day. Why?
In addition to its beautiful space and wonderful staff, probably the biggest reason is Claire’s chef, Steven Obranovich, who spends time nearly every day talking to local farmers and processors about what’s available, what’s in peak, etc., and then adapted his menu to accommodate those local products. The Claire’s web site describes his task as follows:
And the food is spectacular! Claire’s was recently awarded the Editor’s Choice Award from Yankee Magazine for the Best Community Concept, as well as a spot on Conde Nast Traveler Magazine’s Hot Tables list.
Claire’s was founded in May 2008, after four years of effort by its four co-founders. The restaurant employed a community supported business model to raise the necessary capital – 50 community members invested $1,000 each in exchange for restaurant credits. This intimate connection to the community has proven a better-than-expected success, as one of Claire’s owners indicated last night that during its first year it achieved patron numbers projected for its fourth year – nearly every day. Why?
In addition to its beautiful space and wonderful staff, probably the biggest reason is Claire’s chef, Steven Obranovich, who spends time nearly every day talking to local farmers and processors about what’s available, what’s in peak, etc., and then adapted his menu to accommodate those local products. The Claire’s web site describes his task as follows:
From his kitchen on Main Street, our chef plans his menu every day after talking with farmers. Steven is looking for local ingredients at their peak… nourished on the soil and water of Vermont. From there, he begins a journey that might take him down the road to a cheese maker or baker. He considers how the weather has flavored this season’s produce, what local herbs or spices from far away might best bring out that uniqueness, and which cooking techniques are most suitable.
It’s working. Earlier this year, Claire’s announced (proudly) it had purchased between 70-80 percent of its food from within the Hardwick and surrounding communities. Considering the restaurant is located in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom (translated: cold), this is saying a lot.
During our first summer, keeping up with the rush of business, nearly 70 percent of every dollar spent for the food on Steven’s menu went to farms in our community. The majority of those are within 15 miles, and just a few are farther afield in the Northeast Kingdom. Most impressive were the results for our first winter of operations. During the coldest days from January through March, Steven highlighted our winter bounty so that we increased our purchases to 79 percent directly from farmers and artisans in our communities.
By supporting local businesses, Claire’s and its customers are continually increasing demand for local products, which in turn keeps money circulating in the local economy longer. Everyone is winning.And the food is spectacular! Claire’s was recently awarded the Editor’s Choice Award from Yankee Magazine for the Best Community Concept, as well as a spot on Conde Nast Traveler Magazine’s Hot Tables list.
