Local Foods Go Downstream: Exploring the Spatial Factors Driving U.S. Food Manufacturing

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Manufacturing, specifically food and beverage production, is a key employer in rural areas and has linkages to the agricultural sector. Using data drawn from the National Establishment Time‐Series for 2013–15, we explore what entrepreneurship, farm marketing channel innovations, and more traditional spatial factors influence the location decisions of food and beverage manufacturing establishment start‐ups in the U.S. We find that traditional spatial decision factors still matter but, in addition, proxies for farm adoption of downstream innovations are also related to start‐ups. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for food market dynamics and rural economic development policy.