Project Overview
Information Products
Commodities
Practices
- Sustainable Communities: community services, food hubs, local and regional food systems, partnerships, values-based supply chains
Abstract:
The Hoosier Harvest Market, a mutual-benefit farmer owned co-operative, aims to expand their Hoosier Harvest 365 Hospital Delivery Program (HDP), which was deployed in Hancock County in 2018. The HDP was established by a small group of farmers as a way to expand their product offering into a wholesale market while providing fresh and healthy produce for the community. The HDP partners with local hospitals allowing physicians to “prescribe” vouchers for a bi-weekly bag filled with fresh produce.
The goal of the HDP Expansion is to deploy the program in Decatur County with new producers while partnering with Decatur County Memorial Hospital. The project will expand the educational outreach by providing additional hands-on cooking demonstrations in partnership with Greensburg Community Schools to increase exposure and awareness of local food options for food-challenged students.
This 18 month project will create sustainability for the participating farms by providing them with a new market opportunity along with a pre-planned and predictable order for their produce. This project also eliminates food waste from over-harvesting when demand is low, increasing production efficiency through effective planning, which results in higher income and greater market exposure for the farms involved.
2021 update
Due to COVID, the project has been extended until the end of 2022.
2022 final summary
The entire landscape of local food changed in 2019/2020 due to the COVID outbreak. Hospitals were overwhelmed and focused entirely on combatting the pandemic. Many of them lost significant amounts of money due to surgery reschedules and shut downs. Because of this, we saw a drop in the interest of continuing the "extras" of employee wellness benefits through healthy food consumption. Decatur county hospital created an employee store during the height of the pandemic and we helped them stock it, but they didn't want to continue the food bag delivery program. Margaret Mary Hospital and Hancock Regional continued to work with us as they were able. We were recruited to help deliver vegetables to high risk patients in 2020 and by the end of 2021, most of the extra grant money the hospitals had received for this service was gone. They struggled financially and discontinued their programs. That was when our co-operative also had to shift focus. We offered home delivery to our retail customers during the pandemic and continued to operate the Batesville sub-hub. Through 2022, we worked on building up the Batesville location and regaining some of the food access projects that were throttled at the end of 2021. We worked primarily with Margaret Mary hospital in Evansville throughout this project as well as continuing to work with Hancock Regional on a limited basis during the grant. As things return to normal, we're seeing a bit more interest in the food delivery programs again, having secured partnerships through the GusNip grant with the Marion county health department and through another produce prescription grant obtained by Hancock Regional hospital. Overall, the interest in the programs is still there. We are working on how to increase participation and knowledge for the participants. Cooking classes help a small percentage of our recipients, however participation is very much socially driven (the same small group of people would always come, but that group rarely expanded throughout the program). Hancock Regional is now adding more interaction with a dietician to the program which we hope will increase utilization.
In addition, our Value Chain Professional in Batesville also opened a new site at the Batesville Intermediate school in 2022. We hope to see this connection help with community outreach, connecting with the employees and families at the school. Her report is included here.
SARE Final Report
HHM-SE has been growing and changing in many ways during the last 3 years. When the SE market started we were using Dotty’s bulk food as our aggregation and pickup site. In September of 2022 the store closed so we were forced to find a new “home” for our weekly market activities. One of the board members of the Food & Growers Association is a teacher at the Batesville Intermediate School. She was able to connect us with her principal. As a result of this connection we were able to move the market to the Intermediate school. This move has brought new customers including staff members and families from the school. Unfortunately our number of weekly orders has stayed consistent and not grown significantly with the new customers. There are 4 pickup sites in the SE area plus home delivery in Batesville. HHM has reopened pickup locations in Greenfield and will reopen the Hancock Wellness Center sites in February. 5 new vendors have come online with the market over the grant period. There are 3 more that will start selling in the next couple of months.
Pam Rieke
President and Value Chain Coordinator
Batesville Food and Growers Association
Patty Lange Fischer also increased community awareness by holding several events in the southeast area to raise awareness for the food access project. She hosted a fundraiser, getting matching funds from LCEF to sponsor an increased number of bags for our most food insecure participants. Pam worked with the food pantry to identify these patients, distribute the bags and invite them to the Cooking Matters classes to learn more about how to use the vegetables they received. Approximately 10 patients participated in this program regularly through its duration in 2021.
From the perspective of farmer impact, the addition of a food hub in Decatur county has been a great opportunity for sales access to the farms in that area. Here are letters from three of our participants. They reflect the increase in access seen across the board - also reflected in the letters gathered for the 2021 report. DianeArmondupdateletter sare_followup2023 Arnoldfarmupdateletter
Overall, our project was aimed at increasing market access for more small farms in the rural southeast Indiana area. We achieved multiple significant connections in the area, increased local food awareness and sales for our new farmer members. We will continue to operate the Batesville hub to continue to increase access for all of our farmer members.
Project objectives:
- Expand the HDP program as a year-round sustainable project in Decatur County
- This will result in an increase in revenue for the HHM and increased sales of 5-10% for each identified farm sare_followup2023
- Continue to operate the Batesville hub, working with food access programs and giving the farmers in that area additional sales outlets
- Partner with at least four new agricultural producers in Decatur County
- Increase knowledge/purchase habits of fresh produce by prescribed patients and the community
- Share findings through HHM website, social media and public presentations