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Betting the Farm on Locally Grown Food Dave Ranallo was a successful consultant with companies like Ernst & Young and Trilogy Software during the first Internet boom. He worked with Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries, refining their Internet strategies.
Considered a community-supported agriculture food subscription program, Azoti helps farmers obtain new customers, forecast demand, automate food subscriptions and streamline administrative tasks.
The program also eliminates implementation hassles for HR departments. ParticipatThen in June 2011, with z ing organizations choose $30,000 in seed money — by Kay Shabaz subscription options that including $10,000 from his work best for their employees, and in dad — he walked away from corporate life altogether. His mission: to bring the turn Azoti facilitates the marketing and ordering process with promotional mafarm closer to home. terials and an employer-branded website. Then, once a week, parking lots He hung up his sport coat and founded and lobbies transform into onsite farma company called Azoti. The name ers markets where subscribers pick up means nitrogen in Italian, and much like nitrogen is a key element for photo- meat, produce, milk and other artisanal products. synthesis and plant growth, Azoti is a resource for taking local farmers from “We believe that farmers, and not just sustaining to thriving. large government-subsidized ones, are going to be the next millionaires, and Its Employer Connect program is an we are positioning ourselves to be at employee benefit where companies partner with local food producers to de- the apex of that growth,” Ranallo said. liver nutritious food to the workplace. Support for his idea grew in October
2011 when Azoti was one of five startups chosen to receive a $20,000 grant from TechColumbus. The company was selected from a pool of 162 applicants as part of the second voyage of the 1492 TechAccleration program. Within a short period, Azoti sold 306 subscriptions during a pilot program with OSU’s Wexner Medical Center. Now, after plowing along, Azoti has the ears — and mouths, for that matter — of a growing number of Central Ohio companies and their employees. State Auto, Safelite, Grange Insurance, Ologie, M/I Homes and Battelle are among those that have bought into the Employer Connect program. In 2012, Azoti earned high marks from subscribers and farmers despite the worst drought in 50 years. Overall, 90 percent of subscribers gave the program favorable ratings, 97 percent claimed that the food was higher quality than what was available in grocery stores, and 82 percent said they made fewer shopping trips.
His advice to other entrepreneurs is to develop empathetic listening skills and to have a “live-your-life-backward” perspective. That’s where you envision the end result and work backward, so you can properly gauge risk. Ultimately, he believes that if you can do these two things you’ll have a greater level of confidence required for success. What’s coming up next for Azoti? Ranallo and his staff are working on a local food home-delivery model that will launch this spring, broadening the company’s reach in Central Ohio. In every issue, Live Local! Columbus invites one of the area’s business-incubator programs to share a success story. Kay Shabazz is the event planning and member support manager for TechColumbus, a public—private program that supports Central Ohio tech startups. For more information about Azoti, visit www.azoti.com. For more information about TechColumbus, visit www.techcolumbus.org. Photos courtesy Azoti facebook page.