Since its inception, VA FAIRS has provided Technical Assistance that:

• Delivers high-quality technical assistance to producer groups.
• Provides access to highly qualified professional staff with business and cooperative experience.
• Provides the development of specific work products that facilitate technical assistance, business development, and training.

At a time when the marketplace is increasingly competitive, VA FAIRS brings focus and insight to the task of new business development by partnering with highly skilled individuals from state and private agencies.

Our work is based on tried and tested programs designed for planning, policy development, and marketing. The quality of our work is recognized by an increasing number of producer groups requesting assistance.

VA FAIRS has worked directly with numerous groups and individual producers for more than six years. We offer our clients technical assistance services such as feasibility studies, business plans, marketing plans, branding and logo design.

VA FAIRS staff has extensive knowledge and experience in conducting and evaluating feasibility studies. VA FAIRS staff has participated in over 25 studies during the past five years. This tool is a key, ongoing, part of VA FAIRS’s method to deliver effective technical assistance. The expected outcomes of these studies are successful projects, grant funds obtained, and loans received by clients. Some examples are presented:

• We have completed two feasibility studies for beef production in Virginia with two more currently underway.
• We have completed a study for a local cheese operation.
• We have completed a study involving an acorn fed pork venture.
• We have completed five winery studies.
• We have completed an anaerobic bio-digester study that resulted in several hundred thousand dollars in loans and nearly two million dollars of local grant funding for the client's venture.
• We have worked with several client groups on other bio energy studies.
• We conducted a study Aquaculture production in Southside Virginia that resulted in the group's formation.
• We are currently conducting several studies, including an artisinal distillery, and a virtual food hub.

The Center believes that a strategic plan is vital to the success of the groups and individuals that it works with.  This plan will develop over time as the core business of the client evolves. While we work with our clients in order to craft the plan, we believe that each should have ownership of its plan; it should be theirs and not one devised by VA FAIRS.

• During the strategic planning process, it is often revealed that a client business has serious planning deficiencies. VA FAIRS then works with the client to develop a business plan to address these deficiencies.  Staff continues to assist clients with strategic planning in their future endeavors.
• We expect the outcome of these studies to contain constructive information for the groups; regardless of the economic results of the study. We continue working with groups to refine their plans to help them develop a sustainable, commercially viable economic business model.

VA FAIRS has extensive business development experience. VA FAIRS has worked closely with producer groups on at least 20 plans. In addition to working in person with our clients, our internet business plan creation tool leverages our ability to assist many more groups and individuals than is possible with direct contact. Our Virtual Business Center can be accessed from the VA FAIRS homepage: www.vafairs.com.  This tool has been utilized by several hundred businesses to help prepares business plans. Examples of VA FAIRS' work follows:

• We are working with several food hubs to expand their businesses. This is an important area of our work as these food hubs enable hundreds of small scale producers to directly access the consumer marketplace.
• We have helped several family-run wine ventures refine their business plans.
• We are currently developing business plans for three client groups: a winery, one local food hub, and one local meat cooperative.

Our staff has vast experience successfully developing marketing plans and then implementing them. VA FAIRS staff has assisted with more than 18 marketing plans over the past seven years. As examples:

• We assisted with the development and implementation of a detailed marketing plan for farm raised fish, resulting in several hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.
• We helped three local food hub groups with the development of their marketing plans. These hubs serve a large number of producers as a value added local outlet for their products.
• We assisted a foundation that has created an Agricultural Complex. VA FAIRS staff assisted the foundation determine its audience and design a successful business strategy.
• We have finished a business plan for a beef marketing endeavor and are currently assisting with the plan’s implementation, including branding and market placement. The client has revised its sales approach based on VA FAIRS input.