photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Quinlan Carttar, a Food Systems Entrepreneurial Resource Navigator at Douglas County Extension, was recently hired to help support work with the Heartland Regional Food Business Center.

Applications have just wrapped up for a grant program for small- to medium-sized food-related businesses in the region, and Douglas County K-State Research and Extension expects to be helping grant recipients as they grow their operations.

The county extension is a partner with the Heartland Regional Food Business Center, whose Business Builder grant program will soon award grants of between $5,000 and $50,000 to support businesses that address food needs in this region of the country. After the grant recipients are announced, the extension and the regional center’s other partners will be providing technical assistance — such as one-on-one counseling with entrepreneurs — to those receiving the funds.

Other than the extension, the partners in Kansas include Kansas Rural Center, KC Healthy Kids and the Food Conservancy.

“I think all of us key partners that are facilitating the Heartland Regional Food Business Center hope that we can demonstrate that there’s a lot of value in bolstering this sector of our economy and that we’re able to sustain the work through time, one way or another,” said Marlin Bates, executive director of the Douglas County extension.

The Heartland Regional Food Business Center is one of 12 centers that were established in 2023 by the United States Department of Agriculture to create a more resilient and competitive food system in the U.S. It’s led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the rural Missouri community development corporation New Growth, and it focuses on food systems in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and northwest Arkansas.

With the grant program, the center is especially hoping to help entrepreneurs who are Indigenous, immigrants, people of color, veterans or disadvantaged, including those with disabilities. The program is also interested in helping those eager to grow their enterprises and those unsure about whether resources are available to them. 

Between Aug. 15 and Oct. 15, when the applications closed, there were 478 applicants, and a majority were from Kansas.

For those wondering what resources are available from the regional center, the extension has people who can help. It recently hired Quinlan Carttar as a food systems entrepreneurial resource navigator, one of two navigators who can help food and farm entrepreneurs with grant applications and other ways of growing their operations.

“We assist food and farm businesses in Kansas, everything from food trucks in Wyandotte County to cattle farmers in Butler County and everything in between,” Carttar said.

“The bread and butter of what the resource navigators do is work one-on-one with entrepreneurs and business owners of food businesses to help get their business off the ground,” Carttar said. “Basically (we) assess where your food or farm business is today and what’s your vision for where you would like it to go.”

The extension will send out an award notification to those who received grant funding from the Oct. 15 deadline. The next application window, which is subject to change, is from Jan. 15 to March 15. Those who are interested in the program can visit the center’s website and contact Carttar at qcarttar@ksu.edu.