Fullerfield Field Notes

A medically tailored meal provider has a signed contract with a Medicaid managed-care plan. The clinical case is settled: recipients in this category use the emergency room 70 percent less and cost the system about $220 less per member each month. The provider wants to build a production kitchen and take on more patients. The bank will not underwrite a nonprofit with no equity cushion and a contract that pays 90 to 128 days after the meal is delivered. The plan is willing to

Twenty years structuring credit on Wall Street taught me that the most durable opportunities come from mispriced risk: assets the market treats as dangerous that the data says are not. Northeast regenerative food and agriculture is one of those assets. Traditional lenders decline these borrowers as "agricultural risk," price the few deals they do write at a premium, or walk away entirely. The default record says they are wrong. The result is a financing gap Fullerfield puts a

Twenty years structuring complex credit transactions on Wall Street taught me to recognize asymmetric opportunities: situations where the risk-return profile is fundamentally mispriced due to information gaps or structural misunderstandings. The Northeast regional food system is exactly that opportunity. A $2.3 billion financing gap exists across farm succession, CPG brand growth, and processing infrastructure. The capital exists. Traditional lenders have misdirected it becau

You've built a regenerative food brand that consumers love. Your products are on shelves at Whole Foods, independent retailers, and regional chains. Sales are growing 30 to 50% annually. You're profitable on paper. But you can't afford to fulfill your next purchase order. This is the paradox facing hundreds of sustainable CPG brands across the Northeast: growing so fast they're going broke. The culprit is a mismatch between how food brands operate and how traditional financin

A Vermont dairy farmer produces exceptional milk from grass-fed cows. A Connecticut vegetable grower has 100 acres of certified organic produce. A Massachusetts food entrepreneur has developed a revolutionary plant-based protein using local ingredients. They all share the same problem: nowhere to process their products at scale. The Northeast has abundant agricultural production and surging consumer demand for local food. What's missing is the critical infrastructure in betwe

A quiet crisis is unfolding across the Northeast. Over the next decade, more than 60% of the region's farmers will retire, and without intervention, we could lose the foundation of our regional food system. This crisis also defines a $700 million to $1.2 billion financing gap for patient, flexible capital that can preserve farmland, empower beginning farmers, and build resilient local food systems. The Numbers Tell a Stark Story The Northeast faces an unprecedented agricultur