Broadband boosts rural store

Chris Pugh
Connect Ohio

For over 80 years, Pearl Valley Cheese, which is located in Fresno, has been sharing its diverse collection of cheeses with the local and regional wholesale community.
Now the company has reliable access to a whole world of new customers through broadband adoption.

Officials with Pearl Valley Cheese approached Coshocton County Commissioners in 2007 with a request for broadband access. They said that although county metro areas have high-speed Internet, those living outside the towns were using dial-up or expensive satellite service.

“He told us his business depended on the Internet to conduct business as well as the ability to swipe credit cards,” County commissioner Gary Fischer mentioned in a Motorola case study. “Dial-up access was far too slow and unreliable.”

Business and county officials worked hard on the project, which culminated in 2009 with the receipt of a $38,400 federal grant to lease telecommunications towers in rural areas which helped connect Pearl Valley Cheese and others in the area with broadband service.

Connect Ohio State Operations Manager Bart Winegar said the work of Pearl Valley Cheese and Coshocton County was crucial to bringing increased broadband access to the rural residents of the area.

“We’re trying to replicate this model in other areas around the state,” he said.
Store officials are citing broadband for creating incremental sales through e-commerce and for generating additional customer traffic and interest in Pearl Valley’s retail store, where visitors can watch staff members produce cheese during mornings and samples are made available to store customers.
“Since we’ve been able to upgrade with broadband, we’re now able to network seven office computers together, enhance communications, add purchasing and vending support functions and enhance our facility planning and security,” Pearl Valley Cheese President Chuck Ellis said. “We believe that high-speed Internet access has greatly enhanced our operations and improved the profitability of our company by enabling us to efficiently receive and transmit data with outside entities with whom we work with and rely upon every day.”

In addition to Internet and retail sales, Pearl Valley Cheese products are distributed to grocers and specialty retail markets in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

Connect Ohio’s research shows that broadband-enabled businesses generate twice the sales of their unconnected counterparts and that businesses with both broadband service and a website presence experience sales of 2 1/2 times their competitors with neither.

Ohio Farm Bureau Director of Legislative Relations Chris Henney said the agriculture related food processing industry contributes $94 billion annually to Ohio’s economy. But just 48 percent of agricultural businesses use broadband connectivity to maximize their productivity, according to Connect Ohio’s 2009 research. Niche agricultural producers can especially benefit by expanding markets, streamlining ordering processes, and developing efficient partnerships with packaging, shipping, equipment, and other partners.

To find out more about how broadband connectivity can improve Ohio’s agricultural output, contact your local Extension agent or Farm Bureau representative. The state office’s phone number is (614) 249-2400, while individual county representative contacts can be found at http://ofbf.org/contact/