Welcome to the Food Business Team's News and Events page. Stay updated on what we are doing to support farm and food-based businesses!
Thank You for an Incredible Summit
The 2025 Kansas Food Business Start-Up Summit in Lawrence, KS brought together more than 40 entrepreneurs, industry experts, and facilitators for three days of connection, collaboration, and action. Designed as a working retreat, the Summit gave early-stage and growth-minded food businesses space to focus on tangible goals, gain practical insights, and forge lasting partnerships.
Key Informants included experts from Network Kansas, Local Food Marketplace, the Kansas Department of Agriculture, Midwest Specialty Foods, the Small Business Development Center, and more—offering one-on-one “lightning” consultations and group guidance across topics like financing, marketing, legal strategy, and food safety. Many facilitators and Key Informants were entrepreneurs themselves, creating a uniquely focused and generative atmosphere rooted in shared experience.
Kansas Food First
Kansas Food First is a magazine dedicated to highlighting the inspiring success stories of Kansas food and farm businesses. Across the state, hardworking entrepreneurs are strengthening our local food systems, and this publication is here to showcase their dedication, innovation, and impact.
If you have insights to share—or know of individuals or organizations making an impact—we invite you to connect with us. This magazine is a biannual publication; keep an eye out for the next issue in July 2025. Subscribe here to get on the digital mailing list.
Partners and Collaborators
Learn more about the partner organizations that our team works with in Kansas.
This statewide sustainable agriculture organization works with farms to diversify and with communities to build opportunities. Staff will work one-on-one with food and farm entrepreneurs to build businesses and connect to resources.
This consulting organization brings to the Heartland Regional Food Business Center decades of experience sourcing and marketing locally produced food in grocery, restaurant, and healthcare markets.
The mobile market and food hub brings local food to urban and rural communities in the Wichita, KS, region. It will support Heartland Food Business Center efforts to reach and serve area food and farm businesses.
Building upon the legacy of black homesteaders, this organization will support efforts to reach underserved farmers across the state and connect them with Heartland Regional Food Business Center resources.
On the job of supporting family farms since 1907, the Kansas Farmers Union will support the Heartland Food Business Center’s work to build food and farm business capacity and supply chain connections.
Training and consulting in marketing and licensing and permitting of food-based businesses in Kansas is part of this state department’s contribution to the Heartland Regional Food Business Center.
The Kansas Value Added Food Lab will provide Heartland Regional Food Business Center clients with services, such as nutrition facts labeling, food safety reviews, and food product testing.
A project of Kansas Farm Bureau, Shop Kansas Farms markets farm and food products from the state and will provide business development assistance in Kansas as part of the Heartland Regional Food Business Center.
The farmer-owned and -operated food hub will work with the Heartland Regional Food Business Center to strengthen regional food system logistics and assist Kansas and Missouri farmers with retail and wholesale business development and marketing.
Programs and Events
The Heartland Regional Food Business Center collaborates on an event list to share opportunities across our region.
Upcoming Heartland Regional Business Center Eventshttps://heartlandfoodbusiness.org/events/Y
