Beginning in 2012, the Land of Sky Regional Council, ASAP, and UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center started working on a collaborative project to better understand what communities need to foster successful and sustainable local food system growth. Our findings provide a replicable model, though the stories told within these pages have a focus in Western North Carolina, specifically in the counties of Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood, Madison, and Transylvania.