The little northern California town of Winters (population 7,212) is a local foodie destination on the verge of turning its strategic location and beautiful produce into a new crop of non-farming jobs.
“Most of our residents commute to urban centers for work,” said Winters’s city manager John Donlevy. “They head out before 6:30 in the morning and return after 6:30 at night.”
That’s about to change, he said. New economic analysis details the success that regional market-focused food manufacturing and distribution sited in Winters could have.
“Five venture capital groups have visited in just the past three months,” Donlevy said. He sees real opportunity in their potential investments for local people to work closer to home. “That’s huge for quality of life,” he said.
The story of how this investor’s interest in Winters came to be is linked to growing interest from nearby Sacramento. Its new view of outlying rural places has prompted a full-scale mobilization of area leadership in recognition of how much the region has to offer, and to gain from, soaring demand for local food.
Read the full story at the Wallace Center Good Food Economy Digest.
