At Locus, we believe strong food systems are essential to healthy communities and resilient local economies. Supporting regional food and farm businesses is a core focus of our work because it generates wealth for business owners and farmers, increases access to nutritious food, and keeps capital circulating locally.
Despite two decades of federal, state, and private grantmaking, funding for regional food systems remains insufficient and fragmented. Grant funding has subsidized activity without building the market conditions or business capacity needed to attract sufficient capital to catalyze a self-sustaining industry. Together with our partners, Locus aims to design and implement a fundamentally different approach to food sector investment. Instead of single funders supporting individual businesses, we envision a coordinated group of capital partners investing together across the entire food system.
Building a regional strategy that aligns market development and intentional investment means activating cash flows, creating financing vehicles matched to market realities, and coordinating technical assistance. This approach aims to do what grants alone never could: catalyze and accelerate food system transformation by attracting new forms of capital while expanding and improving deployment pathways.
In partnership with American Farmland Trust, Foodshed Capital, 4P Foods, and Conservation Innovation Fund, Locus has launched the Mid-Atlantic Coordinated Capital Coalition (MACCC) in response to these entangled issues. An applied collaborative, MACCC is playing a new, orchestrating role at the intersection of food systems development and investment. Over the next 18 months, MACCC is working to consolidate and secure market opportunities (cash flows), identify supply chain capacity gaps (investment needs), and coordinate integrated interventions (aligned financial products, technical support) to create clear investable opportunities in regional food and farm businesses. MACCC aims to make it easier for investors to participate and to test an innovative model that uses different types of capital – not just grants – to create catalytic, long-lasting impact.
The MACCC framework operates through two strategies:
- Market Development Strategy: Engage large institutional buyers that have committed to procure more regional foods to consolidate demand and secure multi-year purchasing commitments. These procurement contracts are market levers that will unlock investment and convert regional policy goals to investment-ready market activity.
- Capital Investment Strategy: To meet the secured demand and bridge persistent supply chain gaps, MACCC partners will create, capitalize, and deploy tailored, blended investment vehicles. Designed with market intelligence, MACCC ensures these vehicles are accessible to food and farm businesses while offering appropriate risk/return profiles for capital providers. This approach helps move the sector from reliance on grants toward long-term, catalytic investment.
In 2026, Locus and our MACCC partners are gathering data, testing their ideas, and shaping a pilot project for this new investment framework. Together, the partners are working to strengthen MACCC’s convening power, clarify the investment goals, and engage partners from market, finance, and policy stakeholders.
This collaborative work is foundational. Without a trusted, coordinated space that can hold diverse perspectives and priorities, capital and policy efforts often remain fragmented and less effective. As a CDFI with longstanding regional relationships, Locus is contributing its experience and networks to help support this shared effort, alongside the expertise and leadership of other MACCC partners.