In 2024, Environmental Defence Canada published Left Holding the Bag: A Survey of Plastic Packaging in Canada’s Grocery Stores. They found that over 70 percent of products in the produce and baby food aisle are encased in plastic. It’s not much better in the US. In 2019 Greenpeace USA assessed 20 grocery retailers with a significant national or regional presence. None of the retailers, according to Greenpeace, appeared to have comprehensive plans on how to reduce plastic use.

And while it’s true that consumers increasingly report that using less plastic matters to them, statistics paint a different picture. In 2020, over 242 million Americans used bagged or packaged salads–a figure expected to have risen to 251.47 million in 2024. Salad bags are generally categorized as “plastic film” and they jam recycling machinery. They end up in the landfill where they decompose releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Alongside the environmental concerns, there are potential health issues. Growing research suggests that chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic contribute to a multitude of health issues. Consumer Reports tested nearly 100 foods ranging from dairy products to canned goods.They found that phthalates, a chemical used to make plastic flexible, were in almost all of them. Studies suggest that regular exposure to phthalates can affect reproductive health and that older adults with phthalates in their bodies were more likely to suffer heart disease.  

But, there’s hope. In April 2024, the European Parliament voted to approve new rules aimed at reducing plastic packaging. Starting in 2030, bans will be in place for packaging of unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables. Consumers will be encouraged to bring their containers to restaurants and cafés, which will also aim to offer 10 percent of products in reusable packaging. Since 2022,  Canada has banned the use of single use plastic bags at supermarket checkouts. And, in the US more than a hundred municipalities and cities have banned polystyrene ( styrofoam) used in food containers, including Los Angeles and New York. Illinois has gone even further. Legislation came into effect in 2024, permitting restaurants and retailers to fill or refill consumer-owned containers with ready-made or bulk food. Still, plastic packaging persists. 

Currently, out of over 300,000 grocery stores in the U.S., which range from expansive supermarkets to small specialty shops, only 1,300 zero-waste stores offer a plastic-free shopping experience.We spoke with a few shops around the country to see how they ditched the plastic. 

Maison: pay for food, not packaging

After visiting France and shopping plastic-free, Larasita Vitoux was inspired to open Maison Jar Refillery and Grocery Store in Brooklyn.

“In Europe, there are so many refilleries and stores with bulk aisles,” Vitoux says.   

Maison Jar sells bread, vegetables and dried goods all free of plastic covering. According to the store’s year-end impact report for 2023, they are making a dent in plastic use. For example: in 2023 Maison Jar sold 39,075 fluid ounces of kombucha–the equivalent of 2,443 16 oz plastic bottles. 

Something Vitoux believes could propel plastic free bulk shopping into the mainstream market is the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation. An EPR shifts the responsibility for managing materials at the end of life away from consumers and onto producers who are required to provide funding and/or services that assist in managing products after the use phase. To accomplish this, as Vitoux points out, there can be an embedded cost associated with the packaged goods that gets passed on to the consumer. 

Because bulk buying eliminates packaging, bulk items would not incur this carry over expense. 

“It would make bulk much more competitive,” Vitoux says. As of January 2025 legislation to establish EPR’s in New York State, where Maison Jar is,  had been introduced.  

Re_grocery: direct from the farm 

After living in San Francisco and enjoying bulk plastic-free shopping at the city’s iconic Rainbow Grocer, Joseph Macrino returned to Los Angeles in 2016. “ There weren’t any options in L.A. like that,” he says. So, he created his own. re_grocery’s first location opened in April 2020.

From the start, the store was popular; five years later re_grocery has expanded to a chain of three stores. One in Studio City, another in East L.A. and one in Venice. Carrying everything from cooking oils, quinoa, and organic vegetables, they work to keep  prices as competitive as conventional grocers.

“A lot of it has to do with the bulk nature of products we are purchasing,” Macrino explains. “For example, we purchase quinoa in 25lb bags. We get it directly from the farm after some processing and re-packing. It’s not going to another co-packer, where it is getting broken down into smaller packages. By avoiding that other middleman – the co-packer,  we are able to price bulk packages cheaper.” 

Customers at re_grocery weigh their containers when they arrive and receive a laser chip that is attached to the receptacle.When their goods are weighed at the check out the laser tag is scanned and the container weight is subtracted. The customer does not pay any extra for the container.

Roots Zero Waste Market: on demand ordering

The argument for wrapping a cucumber or head of cabbage in plastic is to maintain shelf life and freshness longer. At Roots, Rainey applies a “just-in-time ordering policy.” By ordering more frequently – often three times a week and only what she needs – food remains fresh. Roots sell eggs, milk, meat, and organic produce alongside bulk items such as olive oil, spices and rice. “We evaluate what’s moving on the floor seasonally and adjust to how people’s buying patterns are fluctuating at the time,” she says.

“We are an environmental company disguised as a retailer,” she says.  

Roots operates on a closed-loop business model that fits with Rainey’s environment consciousness, who is adamant that recycling does not work.

“There is no such thing as recycling,” she says. Not only do rules for what can be recycled vary by state: a plastic strawberry container, for instance, may be repurposed, but cling wrap may not be so lucky. Items such as toothpaste containers, chip bags, or juice boxes are formed with multiple layers of materials making them hard to break down and recycle.  

“We never send anything to the landfill,” Rainey says. If, for example, an apple gets bruised in produce, it’s taken to the deli where it is pressed into juice, with the  pulp repurposed for muffins and its core composted. 

 “We are an environmental company disguised as a retailer,” she says.  

The post On the Ground with Grocery Stores Ditching Plastic appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I’ve always had a deep attachment to veterinary medicine. My family has a cattle ranch, and I am sixth generation. I was raised around animals,” says Thompson. 

She is one of a dwindling number of veterinarians choosing to enter rural animal practice. Between three and four percent of new veterinary graduates pursue careers focusing on livestock or food systems. In 2022, more than 500 counties in the US were facing severe shortages of food animal veterinarians, some with no vet service at all.

Thompson’s hometown of Tonopah, Nevada is part of a 23,000-square-mile area she says the USDA has identified as a veterinary desert. The only time vets came to the Thompson ranch was for preventative care. 

In regions like these where agriculture is the backbone of the economy, the absence of veterinarians can spell disaster. Thompson remembers having to trailer their horses to a vet. “If the veterinarian 1.5 hours away couldn’t treat the issue [typically colic],” she says, “we were not in a position to seek advanced care [colic surgery] due to it being another four- to fivehour drive. Typically, it would end in euthanasia,” she says. 

Fewer vets on the ground means fewer eyes to catch early signs of disease in livestock. Early detection is critical in preventing disease outbreaks, such as the 2015 bird flu that killed 50 million turkeys and chickens in Midwest states. It also heightens the danger of zoonotic diseases, which can pass from animals to humans. There is a danger that as these shortages continue, preventative care—which includes deworming and livestock vaccinations—will not happen. The ripple effect of inadequate veterinary care in rural communities, according to a report commissioned by the Farm Journal Foundation, has the potential to affect an estimated 3.7 million livestock-related positions.

“We are worried about our capacity to identify as well as respond to diseases, whether that is endemic disease and/or foreign animal diseases,” says Dr. Rosslyn Biggs, DVM, and director of continuing education and beef cattle extension specialist at Oklahoma State University (OSU) College of Veterinary Medicine.

One of the driving forces behind rural vet shortages is that starting salaries are not always compatible with vets who work in urban centers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterinarians in rural areas earn between $61,470 and $73,540 a year—roughly half of what they could make in a city.

“Salaries in the rural, large, mixed or food animal space,” says Biggs, “have been historically lower than those in urban or other segments of veterinary medicine.” This difference makes it difficult for newly graduating vets. In 2023, for example, 83 percent of veterinarians graduated with an average student debt of $185,000.

The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) through the USDA Food and Agriculture Institute (NIFA) is designed to help more food animal and public health veterinarians relocate to those rural areas facing veterinary shortages. The program will pay off up to $75,000 of each veterinarian’s student loans if they practice in an area designated as being short of vets for a minimum of three years. Since the program’s inception in 2010, it has helped more than 795 veterinarians. 

Need, however, has outstripped VMLRP’s ability to respond. The bipartisan Rural Veterinary Workforce Act could change this. The legislation would end the federal taxation the USDA is currently required to pay on behalf of the award recipient. This could potentially free 39 percent of the allocated money for the VMLRP, creating significant funds for new recipients. This bill was introduced into Congress on June 23, 2023.

But will it be enough to stem the tide? More than just monetary considerations—the life of a rural vet isn’t easy. “It’s hard work. It is long hours,” says Biggs. 

When Thompson graduates, she will begin a contract with a veterinary clinic in Elko, Nevada.

“Part of my contract is that I get to do outreach to areas that don’t have veterinary care,” she says. Twice a month, she will travel long distances to remote communities and provide vet services. This can, for many vets, be isolating and another reason they are deterred from entering into rural practice. Thompson credits her upbringing with making her prepared for these challenges.

“I grew up learning how to navigate without resources, coming from that background has prepared me the most,” she says. 

According to the American Veterinary Medicine Association (AVMA), 45 percent of vets practicing in rural areas are more likely to leave if they come from an urban background. Those that choose to return to urban practice say lack of time off and family concerns played a factor in their decisions.

A shortage of vets in rural areas also means a lack of mentorship for graduating vets. In essence, no one guides young vets through the practicalities of rural veterinary life.

This is something Thompson herself identifies as important. “Eventually, I would like to set up in a rural area,” she says, “but I definitely need that mentorship coming out of school.”

At OSU, things are slightly better than at other veterinary colleges. In 2023, 25 percent of OSU grads entered large or mixed animal practice, while the national average historically fluctuates between 10 and 15 percent. It is something upon which the college is hoping to build. Currently developing a Center for Rural Veterinary Medicine, the goal, among other things, is to provide that much-needed early guidance. The current vision for the program includes a service component in underserved/rural regions as well as outreach programs to mentor youth to help them prepare for and develop an interest in food medicine veterinary practice. The Integrated Beef Cattle Program for Veterinarians has already proven to be invaluable as part of the larger vision for the center. “Twenty vet students with interest in beef cattle practice are paired alongside 20 veterinarians who have some experience in beef animal medicine,” says Biggs.

Another solution, according to Thompson, is to create more opportunities for youth to be exposed to livestock, and have ranchers, farmers and vets come to speak to school-age children. “When I was in school,” she says, “we had an agriculture day in which we’d go out with the local 4H club and they had animals and would teach us handling and proper care. We got to interact with the animals, particularly livestock, and got a little more comfortable with that.” 

Eighty percent of those interested in rural veterinary care have had a significant history of livestock exposure, says Thompson. 

Still, Biggs acknowledges that being a rural vet is not easy. For one, you are going to get dirty. “But,” she says, “being in rural communities and serving farmers and ranchers—there is no better work.”

The post Where Have All the Vets Gone? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The Wood Buffalo Food Bank, in Fort McMurray, Alberta, fed 15,000 clients in 2021/22. According to Scott, the region is a hub for newcomers to Canada, and she estimates that at least half of the food bank’s clients are unfamiliar with Western food. 

Scott’s realization underscores a significant challenge faced by food banks and pantries across North America: Food is more than just fuel for the body. It carries deep significance that connects individuals to their beliefs and heritage. Food banks, though, are non-profit entities and, like the rest of us, are challenged by the high cost of food. This often means that they buy calorie-rich inexpensive products: canned soups, tinned fish, or dried pasta. But, these foods are not always the only foods people want. 

Feedback received by the the Ottawa Food Bank from a pilot project conducted between 2019 and 2020 indicated a desire for ethnocultural vegetables, such as okra, a traditional staple in African diets, to be available at food banks. Now, the food bank grows okra on its farm. 

Similar data was revealed in a report by the Food Bank of the Rockies, which found that individuals visiting food pantries that don’t offer cultural food preferences often feel stigmatized, unwelcome and unwilling to return. 

Recognizing the importance of culturally relevant food, Dan Edwards, executive director of the Wood Buffalo Food Bank, shared how it has always tried to incorporate specific items into its hampers. “We’ve made sure to add supplies for Bannock, a traditional Indigenous food, when it’s within our budget and capacity,” says Edwards. Items such as corn flour, Halal meat, lentils and spices are now added to food hampers if requested.

In Newton, Massachusetts, the Newton Food Pantry (NFP) started offering culturally relevant foods during the early days of the pandemic. “We offered things like celery, garlic, ginger, tofu, and Russian cheese,” says Sindy Wayne, board president of the food bank.

Flash forward to 2024: Client registration forms and intake reflect a significant percentage of food pantry clients as Russian/Ukrainian, Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese speaking), and Hispanic/Latino (Spanish speaking). Each month, the NFP receives funding from corporate sponsors for 100 percent of the purchase of ethnically appropriate food.

“Our hope is that, by offering culturally relevant food, our clients know that we see them beyond their need for food,” says Denise Daniels, pantry manager at the Newton Food Pantry. “In their time of need, we hope they will create familiarity and a sense of home through their meals.” Part of why clients return to the food bank is that it supplies food items with which they are familiar and like. 

One of those returning clients, Daniels recalls, was a woman from Guatemala who noticed that the pantry was stocking a cassava-based cracker. Excited to find an item she was familiar with from her home country, she has returned multiple times to the pantry. The pantry also stocks buckwheat flour and eggplant spread for recently immigrated Russian/Ukrainian clients.

Feeding America reports that of the 47 million people in 2023 who experienced food insecurity, 14 million self-identified as Latino, and more than nine million Black Americans could not access enough food to lead healthy active lives. In Canada, Statistics Canada reports that 28.6 percent of Canada’s Indigenous population 15 years old and older (excluding those living on reserve and in Canada’s three northern territories) experienced food insecurity at some point in 2022.

“There are so many different cultures throughout the United States,” says Molly Kern, chief executive officer of the SLO Food Bank in San Luis Obispo County, California. “What mattered most to us was listening to our community and understanding what their needs were.” Staff at the food bank spoke with nearly 350 community members, finding out what challenges they had accessing food, and, most importantly, what role food plays in their lives. The feedback they received was incorporated into the food bank’s 2023-2028 strategic plan.

“Regardless of cultural background, a big trend was looking for fresh fruits and vegetables,” says Kern. In San Luis Obispo county, the population is slightly over 280,000. Between 2010 and 2022, the Hispanic/Latino community grew 3.3 percent to become almost a quarter of the area’s overall population at 24.1 percent. Dried beans, fresh chilis, onions, and tomatillos, as well as fresh tortillas, are items familiar to Latino traditions and rank high on the list of foods that are available on food pantry shelves. 

“We measure satisfaction by how fast things fly off our shelves,” says Kern. “And when people know you are listening to them and caring for them, and working to improve,it builds trust.”

The post On the Ground With Food Banks Decolonizing Food appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Food maps can show the locations of all the food banks in a region to more specific food assets such as fruit-bearing bushes and trees found along your street.

In the village of Lumby, in B.C.’s North Okanagan Valley, the non-profit Land to Table worked with the local government to create a food asset map to determine if or how village-owned agricultural land could be turned into a community food asset. “Based on mapping out what the community has, we could see what is missing,” says Liz Blakely, the group’s executive director.

Increasingly used by nonprofits and city planners, food maps paint a hard-to-ignore visual depiction of an area’s access to food.

Connecting dots and people: Vancouver Food Asset Map

“A food asset map gives us more information about what’s going on or available in neighborhoods,” says Ian Marcuse, coordinator of Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks (VNFN), a non-profit organization promoting food security throughout the city and the group responsible for current updates to the Vancouver Food Asset Map (FAM). 

The FAM depicts nearly 1,000 assets, ranging from urban farms, community orchards, and gardens to food assistance programs, school breakfast programs, and grocery stores.

“When we reach out to assets, it also builds relations,” says Marcuse. These interactions not only help maintain the accuracy of the map but also open the door for new resources, such as Indigenous food programs that make food systems more inclusive. 

Elvira Chan is the partner engagement coordinator for the Vancouver Divisions of Family Practice, a non-profit organization whose goal is to support physician members and advocate they receive the necessary tools to look after patients. Chan recently contacted the VNFN about food maps. “Doctors,” says Chan, “don’t always know what is out there and available to them.” A map, as part of a larger resource package doctors can disseminate to patients who are looking for healthy eating options or who have expressed food security concerns, is a useful tool, she says.

Food Stash, a not-for-profit Vancouver-based food recovery program, also finds the map a valuable resource tool.

“We get emails, phone calls and people onsite every day looking for food. We keep a running list [based on the asset map] of programs we know have space or are a low-cost option while people are put on a waitlist,” says Anna Gray, communications coordinator.

Available for anyone to access through the VNFN’s website, since the FAM became available to the public in 2017, it has accumulated more than 400,000 views. 

Feeding America: Map the Meal Gap

Map the Meal Gap was created in 2011 by Feeding America, the largest charity dedicated to ending hunger in the United States. This map provides an in-depth, visual representation of food insecurity across America showing a county-by-county breakdown of food access highlighting barriers to nutritious food and how much funding and meals are needed to close the gap between those who have enough to eat and those who don’t.

Groundbreaking in 2011, the map is updated annually with data transcribed from government census reports and sources such as the USDA. But why a map when a written report would provide similar information? “We wanted a visual,” says Emily Engelhard, vice president of food security and well-being research and insights. “We wanted to have a tool that anyone could click onto in their state and county and play around with to see how food insecurity looked different in their community compared to another.” Food insecurity, as Engelhard notes, is found in every state and every county of the US. In 2023, for example, 13.5 percent of all US households experienced some level of food insecurity.

To gauge the effectiveness of the map, every year, Feeding America sends out a survey to food banks in its network. Seventy-five percent of food banks that respond report using the MMG “often” or “always” to allocate resources effectively. 

From Oregon Food Bank’s five main locations, food is distributed to communities across Oregon and Southwest Washington State. In 2023, there were 1.9 million visits to food assistance sites within the network—a 14-per cent increase over 2022.

 “The map,” says Morgan D. Dewey, media and engagement manager, “also helps highlight that food insecurity disproportionately impacts particular communities—such as Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color; immigrants and refugees; single moms and caregivers; and trans and gender-expansive individuals—regardless of geography.” 

By addressing these disparities, the map becomes an essential tool in ensuring everyone has access to resources.

Ohio maps that tell an artful story

Alan Wight is the community and school forest garden liaison at the University of Cincinnati. In his spare time, he works with organizations such as Eat Local Central Ohio River Valley (CORV) to help community organizations create food maps.

Food maps to Wight are a form of art. Inspired by Situationist International, a mid-20th-century movement that used the concept of mapping to change the way people think about the spaces around them, Wight hopes the food maps he facilitates create an artful expression and a new way for a community or groups to appreciate the local food system around them.

Creating a map is a year-long process that begins by talking to community stakeholders about what they’d like represented on the map. “Sometimes, it can be as simple as the convenience stores and grocery stores or as detailed as where the fruit and nut trees are growing,” says Wight.

Small groups are formed to walk through neighborhoods documenting these assets.

The first map Wight helped a community create was of Camp Washington, a Cincinnati neighborhood. Depicting convenience stores, restaurants, community and school gardens, meat-processing and packaging facilities, the map is an artful display of logos that guides the user through a labyrinth of food assets.

Downloadable from the Eat Local CORV website, Wight says that the maps are often made into posters and displayed at community centers and other neighborhood gathering spots. But, as far as he is concerned, how they are disseminated is secondary. It’s the community engagement in designing the map that to him is the biggest benefit.

“It’s the process,” he says. “What comes out of the discussions lives much longer than the map.”

The post On the Ground Exploring a Community’s Food Assets with Maps appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In 2020, the number of Detroit residents identifying as food insecure reached 69 percent. This was further exacerbated by the decline in the number of grocery stores—from 74 in 2017 to just 64 by 2021. None of the remaining grocery stores, in a city where more than three-quarters of the population identifies as people of color, were owned by people of color. The Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network (DBCFSN) knew this had to change. 

After 14 years in development, in the spring of 2024, hope emerged in the form of the Detroit People’s Food Co-op (DPFC). Spearheaded by the DBCFSN and embracing the principles of co-operative economics, the co-op’s purpose is to build power in the food system for the Black community in Detroit. “It is meant to give the community more say in how food is grown, processed, retailed and cycled back into the agricultural system,” says Dr. Shakara Tyler-Saba, co-executive director of the DBCFSN.

It is called the “people’s co-op,” because, unlike private price clubs such as Costco, for example, lack of membership does not preclude a person from shopping. It’s the same story for the majority of food co-ops. However, membership does have its perks. The DPFC’s 4,000 members pay fees to join the cohort, which gives them voting power in electing a board of directors who work to ensure that decisions about what is sold, how it’s sold, and how the store is run reflect member values. The profits of the co-op go towards operational expenses and any profits above and beyond are distributed evenly among co-op members who recycle the monies back into the local economy and community.

It’s a model steeped in a long history of co-operative movements, often led by marginalized groups seeking equality and stability in harsh economic conditions. Perceived as part of the counterculture movement of the mid-late 20th century, co-ops gained a reputation as the antagonist to the industrial food system. 

Joy Emmanuel is a veteran co-op researcher and developer based in Vancouver. “Co-ops are often very involved in supporting the growth and resiliency of the local food system,” she says. On average, according to Cooperatives for a Better World, food co-ops do two and half times more business with local farms and product makers than conventional grocers. 

Much of DPFC’s organic produce is sourced from Detroit’s Black-led farm projects, such as the D-Farm run by the DBCFSN and the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm. 

And while DPFC’s democratic voice rests with its members/owners, on the other side of the county in West Oakland California, the Mandela Grocery Co-op is a bit different. Here, the employees of the co-op are the owners instead of the customers.

Currently, the co-op has 11 full-time team members, five of whom are owners, and six who have embarked upon a year-long candidacy, taking courses and learning what it takes to run a food business. Store manager Anj Talley believes this model is more equitable than a member-owned co-op.

“In a consumer co-op model, operations of the store are much like a traditional grocery store, with a hierarchical structure that includes managers and middle managers, with decisions being made at the top of the triangle,” says Talley. “In a worker/owner model, the owners of the business are in the store talking to the team and the customers, making decisions collectively, on a much more flat level.” 

It’s estimated that when $1,000 is spent at a food co-op, $1,604 is generated in the local economy. For Mandela Grocery Co-op, this inspires them to be even more laser-focused when it comes to supporting people of color in the West Oakland community, and keeping money circulating within the local economy. 

Not only is Mandela Grocery Co-op the only grocery store within a 33-block radius, says Talley, but in West Oakland, where historically systemic racism and gentrification have segregated the community, opportunities for small-scale businesses are limited. Talley often curates specialty products such as homemade candles from local entrepreneurs, giving them opportunities to sell their products that otherwise might not be possible. 

Nowadays, food co-ops are anything but counterculture. The National Co-op Grocers (NCG) helps independently owned food co-ops maximize members’ success, and to grow the co-operative grocery sector in size and scope. Currently supporting 164 food co-ops operating more than 230 stores in 39 states with combined annual sales of more than $2.6 billion, their 2023 Food Impact report paints a picture of more than 1.3 million consumer-owners. 

It’s the promotion of local and organic foods alongside environmental stewardship, community involvement and the fair treatment of workers that advocates of co-ops say has gained the trust of consumers who prioritize sustainability and ethical consumerism. 

“Food co-ops today tend to be more varied in how they are set up, reflecting change in the food system, competition from big food chains, and varied community needs,” says Emmanuel.

In Milwaukee, Outpost Natural Foods Co-op opened in 1970, just as single-use plastic use was gaining popularity for its convenience and affordability. “It was important to the people who formed the co-op that it operated with conservation in mind,” says Margaret Mittelstadt, director of consumer relations. 

From its conception, the consumer/owner co-op has reflected the desire of its member community and has never packed groceries in plastic bags, instead encouraging customers to use reusable bags. Its efforts in sustainability have expanded to include solar panels on the roof of one of the co-ops’ four stores to generate power and reduce the store’s carbon footprint. This has made the co-op a community leader that is often invited to sit in on round-table discussions and to share knowledge with the county or city on sustainability.

Back in Detroit, the DPFC has also quickly become a powerful community symbol as more than just another grocery store. 

“As a Black-led project, the DPFC is pivotal in building equity at the local level and helps people understand what is possible in the food realm, the housing realm and many other realms, not just food or agriculture, ” says Tyler-Saba.

The post On the Ground With Grocery Stores Changing the Way We Shop appeared first on Modern Farmer.

When the Food Industry Association asked Americans to list reasons why they buy local produce, 82 percent of those surveyed cited a desire for freshness. Finding fresh local produce in conventional grocery stores, especially in urban settings, is not always easy. Retail distribution systems are designed to deliver products in as few trips as possible. Breaking this down into numerous shorter trips can be time-consuming and expensive. Large grocery store chains often have long-term contracts in place with out-of-state suppliers that are difficult to breach and, therefore, don’t have store capacity for local produce.

Fresh from the parking lot

Despite these drawbacks, across North America, a handful of grocery stores are pioneering a new way of growing that puts hyper-local food at the forefront of the supply chain. For those operating these farms, such as Kelli Ebbs, store manager of Muskoka North Good Food Co-op in Huntsville, Ontario, the two large shipping-like containers in the store’s parking lot have filled a much-needed gap in the supply chain. 

 “During the growing season, we don’t have a problem procuring fresh greens from local farms,” says Ebbs. In north-central Ontario, however, the growing season is short and, for six to seven months of the year, the store was ordering organic produce from aggregates sourcing produce, sometimes as far away as Mexico. For Ebbs, this was undependable and problematic. 

The first container farm was installed in the store’s parking lot approximately a year and half ago. Built in Canada by Growcer and designed for the fluctuations in the Canadian climate, structural insulated panels keep cool air inside during the summer and make working conditions bearable in winter. Currently growing salad greens, cooking greens and herbs, when a second unit comes online this winter, the store will experiment with growing fresh locally grown strawberries. If the popularity of the first unit is any indication, it will be no problem making sales. 

“We can harvest 100 units of fresh produce on a Wednesday and, by Saturday, it is gone,” says Ebbs. A half-pound bag of fresh salad greens sells for CDN$8, which is comparable to pre-packaged organic greens sold in any grocery store across Canada. The popularity of the products has meant that Ebbs has been able to cover the continuing operating costs of the vertical farm without it having an impact on store profits. 

Ebbs sees a future for the units at her store, but she is also adamant that this type of growing cannot and should not be viewed as a replacement to local farmers or food grown naturally under the sun and rain. “Grocery stores have to continue to support our local farmers and the work they do,” says Ebbs. She vowed when the containers arrived that she would never turn away a local farmer offering fresh produce to the store.

Greenhouses in the sky

“Customers love knowing that we are supporting sustainable methods to expand urban agriculture while being able to offer produce that is fresh and hyper-local,” says Jinah Kim, store team leader at the Third and 3rd Whole Foods in Brooklyn, NY. 

Since 2013, hydroponically equipped greenhouses on the roof of the store have been producing salad greens and fresh herbs for the store below. “What we can grow in half an acre in a hydroponic greenhouse would require 15-20 acres in a field,” says Viraj Puri, CEO of Gotham Greens. By growing and marketing crops locally, the need for long-distance food transportation, fuel consumption, and carbon emissions associated with food miles has been eliminated. For Puri, though, this isn’t the biggest impact being made by the farm. “There’s a lot of symbolism around the project,” he says, “and what is possible in making cities green and liveable and in connecting people to the food system.” 

In-store signage in the produce section educates the customer about the rooftop farm. For those enjoying lunch in the Whole Foods rooftop cafeteria, a bank of windows overlooks the greenhouse production area, letting customers see up close exactly where the lettuce in their sandwich was harvested.

Whole Foods acts as the landlord, but Gotham Greens owns the greenhouses. Produce under the 20,000-square-foot greenspace is marketed to customers under the Gotham Greens label at prices comparable to organic products sold anywhere else. A 4.5-ounce package of salad greens, for example, sells for $3.99, according to Puri. 

Customer loyalty

The Sobeys supermarket chain is one of the largest in Canada, overseeing 1,500 stores under different banners, including the IGA Extra Famille Duchemin in Saint-Laurent. Since 2017, the store has been growing and selling organic produce grown on the store’s open-air roof farm. Designed and built by La Ligne Verte, a company specializing in the design of rooftop growing spaces, the idea initially was to create a green roof. “The IGA being a grocery store,” says Anthime Bion, a landscape architect with La Ligne Verte, “we thought it would be interesting to have a grocery store that was not only a distributor, but also a producer of high-quality organic fresh produce.” 

“The most complicated part was the watering,” says Bion. “We had to be permanently connected to the city’s water system to get enough water to water the surfaces.” Weight constraints on the roof makes the use of machinery prohibitive, meaning the work of growing and harvesting has to be done by hand. Finding skilled market gardeners capable of this, Bion acknowledges, can be challenging. Originally managed by the market gardening wing of La Ligne Verte, in 2023, Sobeys contracted the Montreal non-profit organization La Ferme Du Rue to take over the management of the rooftop farm. 

Being able to manage the IGA farm provides the non-profit organization with income to run workshops throughout Montreal and in schools that introduce youth to the value and practicalities of urban farming. 

“The farm grows exclusively for IGA,” says Réal Migneault, La Ferme du Rue’s founder. “Once harvested, we take it down 44 steps to the store below.” According to Richard Duchemin, the owner of the IGA, the rooftop products increase sales of organic products by 1.5 times over what is normally sold in stores. “The prices are the same as for organic products sold in IGAs stores throughout Quebec,” he says. As with any retail venture, the success depends on the customers’ reactions, who, according to Duchemin, are very proud to be able to contribute to hyper-local purchasing. 

This bolsters Migneault’s belief that a business case can be made for more farms such as IGA’s. “If we look at the benefits of the model,” he says, “it builds faithfulness in the customer base who see the store as an actor of change and this builds your brand. Customers have told me they come to this specific store because of the organic vegetables grown on the rooftop.” 

Currently, though, IGA’s rooftop farm remains one of a kind in Canada.

The post On the Ground With Grocery Stores Redefining How Local Food is Produced appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I am so excited I can have this at home,” says Allison Hepworth who just picked up her bag of fish. Knowing how and where the fish was caught makes a difference to Hepworth. Each package of seafood has a picture of the fisher who caught it, and where and when it was caught. It reminds members that when you become a member of Skipper Otto, you not only get delicious seafood, but you have played a role in supporting the livelihoods of small independent fishers.

Founded in 2008, by Sonia and Shaun Strobel, Skipper Otto is named for Shaun’s Dad, Otto. When Otto began fishing in the 1960s, there were thousands of independent small-scale fishers harvesting seafood along B.C.’s coast, and making a good living. Over time, changes in government regulations have allowed massive factory ships owned by large corporations to gobble up fish, which increased the length of the supply chain. In the United States, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that 70 percent to 85 percent of seafood in stores is imported. Imported seafood can either mean it was harvested from global waters, or caught in the US, but exported to other countries for processing and then returned to the US. This creates a lack of transparency for the consumer on the origin of their food and adds up to lower wages paid to local harvesters.

It’s also risky relying on imported seafood. Shocks such as extreme weather or geopolitical events can disrupt global supply routes and threaten the ability of seafood to be safely traded on a global scale.

“The fishing way of life is endangered, and local fishers are losing access to markets,” says Sonia Strobel.

This is where a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) model comes in. Or, in this case, a CSF. Similar to how a CSA model invites members to invest in a local farm and purchase produce before it’s harvested, a CSF model also pre-sells seafood before it’s caught, inviting members to invest in the livelihood of independent fishers.

The pre-sale of seafood removes the uncertainty as to whether they will have a buyer for their seafood and the price they will receive for the catch. Along with guaranteed income, the nature of a CSF and a local food system allows fishers to pivot their catch to match what is available and abundant. “If one year the sockeye salmon return is low and Coho salmon are abundant, then, that is what Skipper Otto members are offered,” explains Strobel.

Skipper Otto’s 8,000 members are supplied sustainability caught fish from 45 fishing families. This growing success over the past decade and a half has made Strobel a strong advocate for independent fisheries, something put to the test in 2021. For decades, independent harvesters in B.C. have frozen tubs of spot prawns in salt water while at sea to preserve them until they return to port.

Just before the start of the 2021 spot prawn season, a reinterpretation of a government regulation that all catches must be readily available for inspection caused Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to ban the sale of frozen-at-sea spot prawns. Frozen prawns, it was argued, weren’t readily available for inspection. This made little sense to Strobel or independent fishers, especially as they say thawing a tub of prawns took minutes. Strobel and the Skipper Otto team say the policy had the potential to collapse an industry worth $30 million to $50 million annually, and take away the livelihoods of independent spot prawn fishers, perhaps permanently. Strobel turned to Skipper Otto’s vast membership, asking them to sign petitions and write letters in protest. Skipper Otto’s influence played a role in the government reversing the policy.

Continuing to advocate, Strobel has spoken in front of Canada’s House of Commons and sits as a volunteer on the executive committee of Local Catch Network, a North American hub that advocates for local and community-based seafood systems. Through Local Catch’s mentorship program, Strobel was connected with Cadena Ragsdale, owner of Kauai Fresh Fish in Hawaii. When Ragsdale started her business in 2022, it was hard to find fresh local fish.

“We quickly realized there was a demand for fresh local fish and a transparency in where the fish came from,” says Ragsdale. As in B.C., independent fishers don’t always receive fair prices for their catches. That same story can be heard across North America.

In northern Saskatchewan, Indigenous fishers are losing markets for their freshwater catches of walleye and pike. Skipper Otto hopes to add these fishers as suppliers, offering guaranteed sales and fair market value. In Nunavut, Inuit lake fishers drive out on skidoos in the middle of winter to frozen freshwater lakes, drill holes and, using gill nets, pull in by hand their catch of Arctic char. The fish is processed, frozen and available to Skipper Otto members.

Despite expansion, Strobel doesn’t see Skipper Otto as competition with the industrial fishery. “None of us wants to catch the last fish,” she says. What Skipper Otto offers is insurance that fresh local seafood remains available and there is a robust network of small-scale fishers to catch it.

Back at Fisherman’s Wharf, Hepworth completes her order with freshly harvested mussels. At home, she will pull the frozen fish out of her freezer, as needed, and pan-fry it with butter and lemon for her family.

“We are reconnecting people to food,” says Strobel.

The post Spotlight On a Community-Supported Fishery appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As it rots, it emits methane, a greenhouse gas that for the first 20 years of its life in the atmosphere has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. What’s worse is that while all that edible food percolates in the dump, one in eight American adults is experiencing food insecurity.

But like many modern-day problems, there’s an app for that. 

These apps connect farmers, restaurants, and grocery stores that have extra food that might otherwise go to waste, with folks who bring it back into circulation. “If some of these apps can change how we think about food and can include educational components and resources, this may help their customers spread the word about the importance of reducing food waste,” says Dr. Tammara Soma, director of research for Simon Fraser University’s Food Systems Lab.

Too Good to Go

Too Good to Go’s app is a location-based service free for download in every Canadian province and in 30 cities across the US from New York to Phoenix. “What users in one community will see differs from what someone 40 miles away in another city will see,” says Sarah Soteroff, senior public relations manager for Too Good to Go Canada and the United States.

The app user finds restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, and donut shops within their own neighborhoods that, at the end of the day, find themselves with a surplus. The retailer may not want to store the food overnight, and, sometimes, food regulations prevent the reheating of day-old restaurant meals that makes those three leftover slices of pizza unsaleable. 

“It’s based on the surplus of that day and what the store has. It’s unpredictable, so we make it a surprise bag,” says Soteroff. It could, for example, be three dozen donuts divided into four to a bag. Too Good to Go makes $1.99 from the purchase of each bag, and it recommends bags sell for between $3.99 and $9.99. The products in the bag are usually, according to Soteroff, discounted by a third of the original price. 

The app keeps track of how much money the user has saved by buying food destined for the landfill as compared to what it would cost at full price. “Apps like these,” says Soma, “may help restaurants reduce the amount of food that is wasted at the end of the day, especially when people are motivated by cheaper prices.”

The app launched in Denmark in 2016, and it now has 90 million users globally. It has saved American consumers an estimated $127 million on food they otherwise would have bought at full price, and it has earned $41 million for businesses that otherwise would have tossed food away. 

Every time a surprise bag is sold, 2.5 kilograms of Co2 equivalent (Co2e) is diverted from the landfill and atmosphere, with approximately 35 million kg of Co2e diverted in the US. The app personalizes this for the user, by providing a running tally of the CO2e they’ve kept out of the landfill through the purchase of surprise bags and, subsequently, the difference they’ve individually made to global warming. 

Food Rescue US

In 2011, one in seven Connecticut households was experiencing food insecurity, while more than 36 million tons of food was being tossed out across the US. This didn’t make sense to Jeff Schacher, a software developer, and Kevin Mullins, a local pastor, from Fairfax County, Connecticut. They founded Community Plates (now Food Rescue US) and created a model of food rescue that depicts the true meaning of the adage “waste not, want not.”

“We were born out of a problem and a solution,” says James Hart, development director for Food Rescue US.

Businesses agree to donate food, and not-for-profit social service organizations such as shelters, soup kitchens, and food pantries agree to take it. The app’s secret to success is the volunteers who sign up to rescue food and deliver it to the organizations in need. The app gives detailed instructions on where to pick up the food and where to take it. Anyone can sign into the app and claim a food recovery in their area.

For Jenna von Elling, a parent volunteer at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church Virginia, Food Rescue US has made a huge difference to her school community. “At the start of the pandemic, we wondered how we were going to keep the school pantry stocked for families,” she says. After a quick Google search, she discovered Food Rescue US and the pantry has not been without food since.

Twice a week, von Elling and her fellow food rescuers fill two SUVs full of food they claim and recover from the local Target grocery store. What they bring back to the school pantry includes produce that is nearing the end of its grocery store shelf life but is still edible. There are also chicken breasts and other meat nearing best-before dates to boxes of diapers that are damaged. 

Since its founding, the organization has expanded to 23 states, provided 152 million meals to those in need, kept 183 million pounds of excess food out of landfills, and boasts 20,000 volunteer food rescues.

Misfits Market

Misfits tackles food loss at the beginning of its life cycle, including, what Rose Hartley, head of sustainability for Misfits, calls “cosmetically challenged” produce. 

“What we have been hearing from farmers,” she says, “is that they need an outlet to be able to sell this produce.” 

Misfits buys the twisted zucchini, the sunburnt cauliflower, and the pepper that’s grown into a cylinder instead of a bell, and makes the produce available via the app in the form of a food box delivered directly to the user’s doorstep. Subscribers can expect a 30-percent savings compared to food bought at the grocery store.

Sign into the app, anywhere in the contiguous US, and subscribe to a weekly or bi-weekly box, or choose a flex plan to shop as needed. Boxes also contain rejected shelf products—maybe the packaging is crinkled, or the printing of the label is slightly off-center, and, therefore, rejected by the store.

“We are trying to fill that gap that buyers back out of,” says Hartley. “The hope and the dream is that we create a different conception of what good food looks like.”

She admits though that change of this scale could take decades. In the meantime, Misfits continues to recover unwanted food. In 2023, it prevented 26, 444,000 pounds of food from going to waste across the US.

The post On the Ground With Apps Preventing Food Waste appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Dzap’l Gye’a̱win Skiik translates to busy eagle or an eagle who gets things done. A perfect name for Jacob Beaton. As an Indigenous businessman from the Tsimshian First Nation, he never imagined himself farming or teaching others. He lived a quintessentially suburban life with his wife and two sons before devastating wildfires and floods in B.C. inspired him to start thinking about climate change and food security for his family. 

In 2018, they bought Tea Creek, a 140-acre farm outside the village of Kitwanga in northern B.C. With the intent of keeping most of the property forested and only farming a few acres, they settled into farm life. But Beaton had to learn from scratch. He turned to YouTube videos and started visiting other small organic farms throughout the Pacific Northwest and as far away as Europe. 

“Farming, ranching, field base food production were a big part of Indigenous culture in this region that got wiped out by the Indian Act,” says Beaton. When the act was enacted in 1876, it took control over land rights and access away from Indigenous populations, which blocked most agricultural opportunities. “Immediately, from day one, our First Nations friends local to the area started dropping by, really excited that we were farming,” he says. Some remembered stories their grandparents and great-grandparents had told about farming in the area and asked Beaton to come to their communities and teach them.

But he was busy learning himself and, as he put it, there’s only one of me to go around. In 2020, the pandemic struck, and with food sovereignty top of mind for Indigenous communities in the region, it quickly became clear to the Beatons that they could do more to help their community and it was time to expand. Developing the Food Sovereignty Training Program, they invited Indigenous people interested in learning how to grow their own food to Tea Creek. 

Providing skills training in a culturally appropriate and empowering way is not an easy thing to do, but Beaton is “the eagle who gets things done.” 

Realizing that whatever was taught at Tea Creek had to translate into marketable skills and employment opportunities, Beaton enlisted support from SkilledTrade BC. Working with  employers, industry and government, Skills Trade BC approves non-public training providers, such as Tea Creek, to train and certify individuals who meet industry and government accreditation standards in their trade of choice. Tea Creek is able to offer apprenticeship programs and train an individual all the way to Red Seal certification. Recognized as the interprovincial standard of excellence in the skilled trades, it is the highest level of training in the country. 

Programs run from January to November, and they are open to Indigenous peoples 16 and up at no cost. Meals are provided and bunkhouse accommodation is available. All programs have Indigenous instructors and include carpentry, safety training, first aid, drone mapping, heavy equipment operation, cooking, horticultural training and administration. 

Tea Creek is not a school with desks and classrooms. The land is the classroom. All courses are held outside as much as possible. Instructional cohorts are small, ranging from three to six people. This creates better opportunities for instructors and mentors to connect with trainees who in turn receive more hands-on learning experiences. 

Arriving at Tea Creek in 2020, Sheldon Good was 23 years old when he learned to repair and operate tractors. He says the experience at Tea Creek motivated him to get up during the day and do things. “The environment is really welcoming and there are really nice people taking care of everything,” he says. Acquiring skills he otherwise wouldn’t have learned, he now works at a sawmill.

Tea Creek though is more than learning to operate a backhoe or tractor. The farming methods taught here include best practices from regenerative and conventional farming. This includes learning how to make fertilizer from compost and using a tractor to till the soil. Beaton’s business savvy has him insisting that trainees leave Tea Creek with a range of economically viable farming skills. With food sovereignty top of mind, traditional Indigenous crops such as corn are grown alongside kale, broccoli and lettuce. In 2022, the first crop of Ozette potatoes was harvested. These fingerling potatoes, renowned for their nutty flavor, were brought to the Pacific Northwest from South America by Spanish settlers 200 years ago. Grown primarily by First Nations peoples, they were rarely known outside of Indigenous communities until the late 20th century.

In 2023, Tea Creek hosted Farmstand Fridays where 20,000 pounds of fresh mixed vegetables were distributed to Indigenous families and communities. Tea Creek also prepares and serves 100 hot meals per day to trainees and staff using vegetables from the farm. 

In 2021, Tea Creek’s first year of accredited training, 33 people graduated from Food Sovereignty Training programs. Last year, 292 Indigenous people enrolled in training programs and more than 140 graduated from at least one course. 

“Tea Creek, can solve Canada’s farmer shortage. If funded and supported in a real way, Tea Creek could be scaled with multiple training centers across the country.” Jacob Beaton

It’s estimated that, by 2033, 40 percent of all farm operators in Canada will retire. Two-thirds don’t have succession plans in place. 

“Tea Creek, I’ve been told,” says Beaton, “in the area of agriculture, outputs more people in a year than any other agricultural training program in the province.” With a waiting list of 75 First Nations from the east to west coasts eager to learn, there is no shortage of enthusiasm. 

The legacies of Canada’s Indian Act, though, are far reaching. Canada’s residential school system stripped Indigenous children of their cultural identity and language. This has caused intergenerational harm that continues to be experienced through ongoing marginalization and systemic racism.

In 2023, 93 percent of Indigenous youth attending programs at Tea Creek identified this historical trauma as a factor in their mental health challenges. Through the peer-to-peer counseling Tea Creek offers, the sense of belonging and the purpose it provides through its training, 100 percent of trainees 30 and under, in 2023, reported improvements in their mental well-being. This is Tea Creek’s real success. 

“Before I got here, I was really in a dark place,” says Justice Moore, who is featured in the film Tea Creek, part of CBC’s Absolutely Canadian documentary series. “I was getting to the point of, just, no return. That’s the only way I can put it. I wouldn’t be here if Tea Creek weren’t here. That’s a fact.”

This story is part of our Future Farmers series, highlighting the joys and hurdles of a career in agriculture today. You can read more of this series here. 

The post Meet the Farmer Training Indigenous Youth and Revitalizing a Culture of Food Sovereignty appeared first on Modern Farmer.

That’s a tall order. In 2021, approximately 33.8 million Americans were living in food-insecure households and approximately 600,000 Americans died annually from diet-related disease.

But across North America is a growing cohort of hospitals taking on the challenge and turning hospital food from a blob of green Jell-O to a fresh and tasty meal. Working with FIM, hospitals are filling doctor referrals for farm-share boxes of fresh produce and supplying hospital kitchens with organically grown crops. 

These farms are not simply growing kale. They are producing medicine. 

BMC’s Power Plant Farm

At Boston Medical Center (BMC), sustainability matters. On the roof of BMC’s natural gas-powered heat and electrical power plant, there is a 2,658-square-foot outdoor container farm, aptly named Power Plant Farm. Growing more than 30 varieties of crops, including cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, squash, herbs and leafy greens, the farm harvested 4,000 pounds of organically grown produce last year.

“[This] represents a more holistic approach to care,” says Sarah Hastings, farm manager. “We are starting from square one, making the message clear that fresh foods help us heal and maintain our well-being.” 

The Preventive Food Pantry is the anchor of BMC’s FIM initiative. “We have more than 1,600 families, who receive about four days worth of food with each visit,” says Hastings. Used by cancer patients, those with heart disease, diabetes or other chronic health conditions, they are referred to the food pantry by their primary caregivers, who write prescriptions for foods promoting physical health, recovery from illness or as a preventative for future health issues. 

Throughout the hospital, patients and families are continually connected to the farm, reinforcing the message that healthy food matters. A large glass window in the waiting area of one of BMC’s buildings allows patients and their families to see the farm. “There is an especially heartwarming connection when patients or their families make it down to the farmer’s market in the foyer after observing the crops from the waiting area,” says Hastings. The farmer’s market operates once a week, with the produce sold at subsidized prices to staff, patients and their families. 

BMC’s Teaching Kitchen also incorporates farm produce into recipe tutorials for patients and their families to help them learn healthy ways of preparing food. For example, patients can attend a class at the Teaching Kitchen before bariatric surgery to help them learn simple ways to prepare food that will help their stomachs heal post-surgery and prevent nutritional deficiencies. 

“The farm brings a lot of excitement to the hospital,” says Hastings. 

The Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor

Established in 2010, the Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor in Ypsilanti, MI is one of the oldest hospital farms in the US. Leaders of Ann Arbor hospital, according to farm manager Jae Gerhart, started to see an increased rate of diet-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes. They decided to use a small portion of the hospital campus to grow nutritional food and act as a community and educational resource geared towards disease prevention. The farm sits on five acres, four of which are used as community gardens or for events. One acre produces food that is designated for FIM’s programs. 

During the growing season, the farm hosts school field trips and summer camps for children aged four to 10. There is a farm-share box program that runs for 36 weeks over the growing season, for which anyone can sign up. For those struggling to afford fresh food, there is the option to sign up for the Farm Share Assistance Program or the Produce Prescription program at no cost. 

“Doctors love the program,” says Gerhart. “More and more, they are asking those social needs questions at a patient’s appointment.”

Gerhart says FIM and farm programs can reduce overall health-care costs associated with diet-related health conditions. “More and more data supports that,” she says.

Researchers at the FIM Institute at Tufts University concur. A 2023 report suggests that FIM interventions, such as medically tailored meals, could eliminate 1.6 million hospitalizations in the US annually and save $13.6 billion in health-care costs per year. Traditionally, individuals experiencing food insecurity spend an extra $1,800 per year in health-care expenditures. Farm share assistance programs could help reduce those costs. 

Salish Sea Regenerative Urban Farm

Changing the paradigm that hospital food has to be mushed peas and frozen carrots, the seven-acre Salish Sea Regenerative Urban Farm (SSRUF) sold organically grown cucumbers, tomatoes and 1,000 pounds of potatoes to British Columbia’s Sechelt Regional Hospital in 2023.

The American Medical Association has long advocated for adding a variety of healthy food choices, including plant-based meals and foods low in fat, sodium and added sugars to hospital menus to assist in better outcomes for patients.

But providing better hospital meals is not as simple as it sounds. The cost of local, sustainably grown foods can be more expensive than tins of marinara sauce or bags of frozen peas, especially for small hospitals with limited budgets. Large hospitals prepare food for hundreds of patients daily, with little turnaround time between breakfast, lunch and dinner. It takes time to chop, wash and cook fresh produce as opposed to opening and plating a bag of prepared salad mix. Many hospitals also have contracts with outside vendors, which makes it hard to incorporate other sources.

The SSRUF was aware of all of these concerns when it approached the small 38-bed hospital with its offer to sell its organically grown food from a farm 30 yards away from the hospital’s kitchen. But, according to Dave Ryan, a board member for the farm society, both the hospital and the regional health authority were very receptive. 

Surveys of the kitchen and care staff at the hospital were done to gauge the response of having local produce available to patients. “The kitchen staff were really excited,” says Barbara Seed, another board member of the farm society. 

The head of hospital food services also did a waste audit with preliminary results indicating that, when the fresh produce was added to meal trays, less food was thrown away. More audits will be needed to provide reliable data, but SSRUF is positive that it will concur with them about the benefits of farm to hospital food.

“It’s obvious,” says Ryan, “where nutrient-dense quality food should be—in a hospital where people have metabolic issues and should be served nutritious food to help recover.” 

The post On the Ground With the Farms Feeding Hospitals and Their Patients appeared first on Modern Farmer.