The Let's Be Frank food trailer parked most days outside the old Helms Bakery complex in Culver City is no ordinary lunch wagon.
The San Francisco company that operates the hot-dog vendor serves franks and sausages made from cows that ate only grass or pigs that were raised humanely. Customers also can choose turkey or soy dogs, all on buns from L.A. Breadworks.
The small business was funded in part by venture capitalist Peter Rogers and his Dry Creek Ventures, which targets clean energy, water and food businesses.
Such small local food outfits, especially those that are gentle on the environment, are key to the long-term health of the economy but need formal access to local investors to succeed, says social venture-capitalist and entrepreneur Woody Tasch.
Shifting capital to organic farmers, independent food entrepreneurs, farmers markets and restaurateurs will pay off in stronger local economies, a healthier environment and improved supplies of affordable, healthful food, Tasch said.
He founded Slow Money Alliance last year to spearhead the creation of regional networks of local investors that want to put their money into local enterprises.
"We've had the life sucked out of our society and economy by financial markets run amok and globalism run to extremes," Tasch said. Slow Money is "part of a network emerging of people who want to repair the damage."
The Brookline, Mass., nonprofit, which was inspired by the Slow Food International local-food movement, had its first national meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., two weeks ago. Investors, investment bankers, entrepreneurs, farmers and others from around the world debated how best to build the networks. A team of five Southern California members, including chef and entrepreneur Gordon Smith of San Diego, will lead the efforts to build a regional network in the Southland.
Tasch says he feels a sense of urgency in shifting capital to local food businesses. He believes that the agriculture and food industry is ultimately as unstable and vulnerable to collapse as the global credit markets turned out to be.
Supermarkets full of cheap food have blinded people to the risk much as the 10%-plus annual returns on their stock portfolios lured people into a false sense of financial security before the recent global financial markets collapsed, he said.
