South Central Missouri Foodshed Project
Building the Missing Middle
GOTURSIX | MO EATs
Project Period: September 2026 through June 2027
Regional Lead: GOTURSIX
Framework: MO EATs, University of Missouri Extension
Project Purpose
GOTURSIX is leading a regional effort to better understand how local food moves through South Central Missouri and what communities need to strengthen their local foodsheds.
The work begins with a simple curiosity:
What exists? What is missing? What makes it easier or more difficult for local food to move from producer to consumer?
The answers will come from the people who participate in the food system every day.
The Core Question
What is the “Missing Middle” in South Central Missouri’s foodshed?
The Missing Middle is the space between producing food and getting that food into the hands of people who want to buy, eat, serve, or distribute it.
That may include:
• Markets
• Aggregation
• Storage
• Refrigeration
• Processing
• Transportation
• Retail pathways
• Institutional purchasing
• Licensing and regulation
• Business readiness
• Consumer access
• Relationships and communication
The project does not begin by assuming what is missing. Local people will help us discover it.
Geographic Approach
GOTURSIX will begin in Wright County and use what we learn there to strengthen the process as the project expands throughout South Central Missouri.
Proposed county sequence: Wright → Webster → Texas → Laclede → Douglas → Ozark → Howell
The objective is not to make every county look the same. Each community has different producers, consumers, markets, organizations, resources, barriers, and opportunities. The regional work will identify where those experiences intersect.
Wright County First
Wright County serves as the initial learning environment. GOTURSIX already has relationships with producers, businesses, community organizations, consumers, and local leaders in the county.
The development of the Wright County Farm Stop also provides an opportunity to examine local food movement from the inside. Rather than studying the food system solely from a distance, GOTURSIX can document what happens while navigating real producer and market pathways.
Examples include:
• Fresh egg production and retail
• Producer consignment
• SNAP retailer authorization
• WIC readiness
• Cottage food pathways
• Value-added food production
• Refrigeration and storage
• Retail licensing
• Shared market infrastructure
These experiences do not determine the regional findings. They give us additional questions to ask.
Local Leadership Teams
Each participating county will be invited to develop a small Local Leadership Team of approximately three to five people.
The goal is not to recruit representatives who speak for an entire county. The goal is to bring together people who can help us listen.
Teams may include producers, consumers, community leaders, businesses, food retailers, schools, healthcare organizations, food access organizations, Extension partners, economic development organizations, and other people connected to the local food system.
GOTURSIX will lead the regional project. Local Leadership Teams will help make sure the work remains grounded in their communities.
ENGAGE: Listen Locally
Each county begins with conversations. We want to hear from people who grow food, sell food, buy food, prepare food, distribute food, and work within community systems connected to food.
Questions include:
• What local food resources already exist?
• How does locally produced food currently reach consumers?
• What works well?
• What makes that movement more difficult?
• Where do producers get stuck?
• Where do consumers get stuck?
• What opportunities do people see?
• What do people wish existed locally that does not exist now?
Stories matter because systems are experienced by people.
ACT: Learn Regionally
As county conversations develop, GOTURSIX will bring Local Leadership Teams together to look across the region. The purpose is to identify patterns without erasing local differences.
A challenge experienced by one producer may be an individual problem. The same challenge appearing across several counties may point to a regional opportunity.
Local stories can reveal shared assets, shared barriers, shared needs, and shared opportunities. Those patterns become potential regional priorities.
TRANSFORM: Build Together
The regional work will culminate in a South Central Missouri Food System Action Plan.
The Action Plan will document:
• What communities told us
• Existing regional strengths and resources
• Common barriers
• Opportunities for collaboration
• Infrastructure needs
• Producer and market development opportunities
• Food access considerations
• Potential partnerships
• Recommended next steps
The Action Plan is intended to be useful. It should help communities, producers, organizations, funders, policymakers, and regional partners understand where strategic investment or collaboration could strengthen the foodshed.
The Wright County Farm Stop Connection
The Wright County Farm Stop is one possible response to a local infrastructure gap. It is not the predetermined answer to the regional project.
Instead, its development gives GOTURSIX an opportunity to test questions emerging from the work.
Eggs test: How does a small producer move into retail?
75/25 consignment tests: Can a shared market create a viable exchange for both producer and retailer?
SNAP tests: What does it take for locally produced food to become accessible through federal nutrition benefits?
Value-added foods test: What happens when a producer wants to turn a raw agricultural product into a higher-value food product?
Licensing tests: How understandable and navigable are the pathways between production and legal retail sale?
Shared infrastructure tests: Which investments can serve multiple producers rather than requiring every producer to build the same infrastructure independently?
Each experience becomes another piece of information.
What We Are Not Doing
We are not arriving with a predetermined solution. We are not assuming every county needs a Farm Stop. We are not evaluating individual producers. We are not ranking communities. We are not asking communities to recreate systems that already work. And we are not building a report that sits on a shelf.
We are asking communities to help us understand their foodshed well enough to identify where collective action could make a meaningful difference.
Project Philosophy
Listen locally: Local people understand their communities.
Learn regionally: Individual experiences can reveal larger patterns.
Build together: The strongest solutions are developed with the people who will use them.
By June 2027
Success means South Central Missouri has a clearer understanding of what we have, what we need, what gets in the way, and what we can build together.
Most importantly, we will have a clearer understanding of where the region has practical opportunities to help more locally produced food become local economic opportunity.
