Increasing Farms Sales Through Harvest of the Month

During the first growing season only 4 farmers, 2 food service directors, and 1 coop extension educator joined the list serve. Several other interested food service directors reported difficulty joining the list serve due to computer filters applied by their school. During 2013 3 additional farmer and 3 others not directly buying or selling produce joined the list serve. The total distribution list however, was expanded to include 41 farmers; 34 food service directors and staff in school, college, camp, hospital, nursing home, and emergency food kitchens; 3 grocery store perishables managers; 5 restaurateurs; 2 produce distributors; and nearly 40 interested others largely health system wellness educators and extension staff. The distribution list includes 6 food service directors and 9 interested others, primarily extension staff, in neighboring counties. Two additional grocers where contacted and visited, but given the limited selection of produce stocked in their stores, they were not considered likely to participate and were not added to the distribution list.

During the spring of 2013 local food promotions were held at Honeoye Central School, Naples Elementary School, and Geneva North Street School. Promotions coincided with the cafeteria serving local food including winter squash, strawberries/rhubarb, and asparagus and in 2 cases samples were available to distribute to students. Each event involved contact with approximately 400 to 500 students, and 6 to 8 teachers and other professional staff.

Since food service directors had not committed to the Harvest of the Month concept and serving and promoting local items each month, these and other local food promotional events featured our Finger Lakes Farm to Cafeteria banner and laminated serving line signage. In addition to encouraging students to try new or local foods the promotion encouraged them to look for the Finger Lakes Farm to Cafeteria logo on the serving line to let them know when local foods are being served. It has been difficult to assess actual use of serving line signage when local foods are being served.

In addition to the above cafeteria Finger Lakes Farm to Cafeteria promotions, our outreach identified other opportunities to expand local food sales through participation in food related festivals. In August and September 2013 local food promotional activities were conducted in conjunction with Love Local, a community education event sponsored by the Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Fun on the Farm, a biennial farm based education event sponsored the Ontario County Farm Bureau; and an annual farmers market at the Canandaigua Primary School. Each of these events included a display about growing, preserving, and serving local food in area cafeterias; creating a healthy, fair, and affordable food system; identifying source of their last dinner; and an opportunity to leave contact information to join with others interested in expanding farm to cafeteria sales. These events also included sampling local foods including round yellow lemon cucumbers, kohlrabi, and local herbs.

A staff person from American Fruit and Vegetable, a regional produce distributor with 50 local farmer suppliers, also sold local foods at Love Local. At the Canandaigua Primary School Farmers Market, students and staff had the opportunity to purchase foods from several local farm vendors. These events involved contact with approximately 600 people. Those leaving contact information included public and private school parents, teachers, college students, and scout leaders.

The project identified 5 restaurants interested in sourcing local foods and the Harvest of the Month concept. One is a Mexican restaurant operated by a native who grew much of his own produce in 2012 and also featured Iroquois White Corn, a heritage corn being re-introduced for tribal and commercial use by the Seneca people and the Ganondagan State Historic site. The Mexican restaurant menu is not well suited to changes based on seasonally available local foods. Instead, the owner maximizes use of local foods by buying and preserving salsa ingredients, using cabbage (a significant local crop likely local even if not intentionally so) instead of lettuce on most dishes, and experimenting with specials. The owner indicated experimenting with a number of local products, including the Iroquois White Corn, New York state produced tortillas, and other items, but being constrained by customer willingness to pay. Two restaurants featuring local foods closed during the course of the grant period, a third recently changed chef and another has never been successfully contacted during phone or on-site outreach, though the owner remains on the distribution list.

In 2013, fewer food service directors responded to e-mail and phone outreach to report local food sales than in 2012. Six of the 8 food service directors who provided detailed information in 2012 provided detailed purchase information for 2013. In 2013 an additional two food service directors plus two new responders provided some local food purchase information. The two non-respondents were estimated to decrease purchasing. Estimates were based on our knowledge of the program and the director’s commitment, the actions of other directors, and the relative size of the school’s enrollment. Based on the information provided by food service directors, it is conservatively estimated that fresh produce purchases at the 9 school districts and the responding hospital, community college, and emergency food provider were approximately $35,000 in 2013.

In 2013 we were only able to interview one of the seven farmers interviewed about local cafeteria sales in 2012 responded in 2013. Barron’s Pratt Vineyard had sales of approximately $12,000 up more than 20 percent from 2012 due largely to better weather and higher yields. While the farmer reports all produce is wholesaled to local institutions, local food purchasing information and estimates accounted for less than half of reported grapes sales. This suggests actual local purchases of grapes and other local items may be higher than the conservative estimate of $35,000, perhaps as much as $70,000.

This project has substantially increased the visibility of direct and indirect institutional purchasing among smaller and beginning farmers, food service directors, extension personal, and the general public. It has also generated significant interest from outside the target area This project has contributed to maintaining local food purchasing despite barriers of availability, cost, and convenience. It has also expanded awareness of best serving practices, consumer interest, and economic benefits of local food among farmers, food service directors, extension staff, and interested members of the public. It is however, difficult to attribute any changes in farm income or farm viability directly to this project.

The most significant impact of this project in terms of increasing local farm sales occurred outside the target area based on a connection at a project gathering. This chance meeting between a food bank representative and a local food buyer for a regional distributor lead to a ten fold increase in production and distribution of locally grown and packaged sliced apples from 7 to 70 cases per week. The regional distributor indicates there is significant additional market potential for this product as well as other food bank lightly processed local products including salads, winter squash puree, and possibly diced vegetables once commercial packaging and food safety standards are met.

This dramatic result was the culmination of several years of effort by extension and school districts in a neighboring county to demonstrate that students were more likely to eat not waste sliced fruit (an increase of 32% in the number of all students who took apples when they were sliced and further analysis showing that children who took apples wasted 30% less when the apples were sliced) and piloting a local product processed by the regional food bank. However, it took a connection between the producer and a regional distributor at a project gathering to gain entry of the sliced apple pilot product into 50 school districts and other customers in three counties. This product replaces sliced apples packaged out of state, fresh apples in some elementary and after school settings, and reduces use of commercial slicers provided for student use in pilot schools when documenting increased consumption and reduced waste of sliced apples.

There are plans to pilot a value added local carrot product next. With local farmer participation, the Koolrabi product piloted by Bejo Seeds in the California market could be the next locally grown, lightly processed product available for distribution through existing channels.

Another outcome of this project and years of previous networking events, skills training, sharing successes, and hand holding, is one farmer/institutional pair poised to discuss the potential for expanding farm to cafeteria sales before planting decisions are made. Additionally, Farm to cafeteria activities are included in the work plan of the Community Health Improvement Plan developed by the three hospital/health systems operating in Ontario County to reduce obesity. Interested stakeholders in the health and wellness field are already assisting school districts and other community groups with nutrition education and provided the conduit for funding for locally grown school food and the organization of the School Food Independence committee. It remains to be seen what additional resources the health sector may contribute to promote expanding consumption of healthy local produce, but there is awareness that Farm to Cafeteria efforts complement their goals.