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Hungering for local foods: Fuel prices and recalls have farmers and businesses working together
Localvores, whatever the word might suggest, do not eat the locals.
They do eat the meat and breads and vegetables and dairy products that were grown and produced somewhere close to where they live and shop. If they live in Northern Virginia, they don't eat many bananas shipped thousands of miles from South America, and they don't eat strawberries in December that came from California.
With gas at $4 a gallon and headed higher, floods in the Midwest that will send the price of corn into the stratosphere, and salmonella lurking in tomatoes that arrive travel-weary from Mexico or some parts of Florida, the idea of buying local is drawing a lot more interest.
Local foods, supporters say, are more nutritious, last longer in the refrigerator drawer or on the shelf and taste better. And buying locally puts a lot of money back into the local economy.
Local economy benefits
Matt Benson and Eric Bendfeldt, both community viability specialists with the Virginia Cooperative Extension, estimate that if every family in Loudoun County spent just $10 a week of its food budget on "fresh, local produce and farm-based Virginia products," that would inject nearly $50 million dollars into the county's economy.
In Fairfax, with a lot more families, that number goes north of $200 million.
Benson and Bendfeldt were two of the hosts, along with Airlie's Local Food Project, at a June 9 seminar at Airlie, near Warrenton, to find out from store and restaurant owners, food service managers and chefs what it will take to get them to buy on the local market.
Many of them would like to buy local, some already are, but the obstacles are intimidating -- the price can be higher and the supply can be unpredictable.
Getting food to buyer
The biggest hurdle to getting a large food service operation to buy local is distribution, said Christopher Carpenter, who is working to get over that barrier at Washington and Lee University in Lexington.
Carpenter has set of goal of getting 20 to 30 percent of the food served in the cafeteria from local sources by the time school opens for the 2008-'09 school year. To do that, he is working with Appalachian Harvest, a network of certified organic farms in southwest Virginia. The farmers' produce goes to a warehouse in Charlottesville, and from there to Washington and Lee's kitchen.
"It took awhile to get to the point where we could get it brought to our back door reliably," Carpenter said.
But he set up a system for local cattlemen to take their steers to a processor in Harrisonburg, and that processor delivers the steaks and hamburger to the campus kitchen. Honey, apple butter, flour and grains all are bought locally.
"My goal is to see Virginians feed Virginia," Carpenter said. I understand that bananas don't grow here, but I believe Virginians can feed Virginia, at least for many products."
Cost can be an issue, Carpenter conceded, but the enhanced flavor and nutritional value and food safety don't fit handily on a spread sheet. Locally bought produce has a far better shelf life, which adds to its value, he said. Lettuce from California will go bad within 76 hours. Lettuce from a local field can be used for up to three weeks.
And "when gas hits $7 a gallon," Carpenter said, the whole equation will change. That lettuce from five miles away will start to look a lot more attractive.
The distribution hurdle is a lot higher for Skip Harkness at Inova Loudoun Hospital, who feeds 400 patient meals a day, and serves upward of 700 meals a day in the hospital cafeteria. Many of his customers are sick, many are on restricted or special diets, and he has almost no storage space.
He shops for himself at farmers markets, Harkness said. That's not an option for the amount of food he has to have delivered to the hospital kitchen every day. He has managed to eliminate trans fats from his menu, but has not found a cooperative capable of the large, frequent distribution that he must have.
Schools' special challenges
The Prince William County public schools serve 9,000 breakfasts and 47,000 lunches a day, said B. Katrine Rose, administrative coordinator for nutrition, school food and nutrition services. Thus far, she's been able to get small bags of individually wrapped Winchester apples onto the menu. Most of their foods, fresh and canned, are delivered from Schenck Foods in Winchester, which also holds the contract for the Loudoun schools.
School systems must comply with public procurement law – the lowest bidder wins. No bias in favor of local purchases is allowed.
Jeffrey Platenberg, the Loudoun public schools' assistant superintendent for support services, said he doesn't know if Schenck buys locally, but he does know it delivers a high-quality product at a competitive price.
A sales manager at Schenck said the company buys nationally, and has not found a distribution system that would let it steer its buying specifically to the local markets and growers.
The Extension Service's Matt Benson, who helped coordinate the Airlie "buy local" conference, agrees that "figuring out the correct food system model to bring together farms and businesses is a great barrier. It's also a great opportunity."
One solution, Benson said, might be for farmers to collaborate and set up a central distribution facility. And a pair of entrepreneurs in Rappahannock County is working to set up a food buyers' club, "sort of a movable farmers market to bring the production to the markets in Loudoun and Fairfax. It could be similar to a Community Supported Agriculture [like Great Country Farms in Bluemont], where shoppers buy a share in the farm's yearly production," Benson said.
Restaurants working it out
Several Loudoun restaurants – Tuscarora Mill and the West Loudoun Street Cafe in Leesburg, Magnolias at the Mill in Purcellville, Grandale Farm north of Hillsboro – pack their menus with fresh, local produce. American Flatbread in Broadlands gets at least 50 percent of its foods on the local market, owner Janice Vasko said.
Vasko has developed relationships with local growers through the farmers markets. She can call Steve Baker in Mount Jackson and arrange to pick up a week's supply of his ham at the Ashburn market, and has Elaine Boland bring enough fresh, free-range chicken from Fields of Athenry in Middleburg to the Leesburg market to keep her customers happy.
"Not a lot of farmers deliver," Vasko said. Serving 600 meals a week and open only for dinner on weekdays, she can be her own delivery system.
"People want to eat good food," Vasko said, "and they want to know where it came from. With everything that is going on right now – gas prices, the tomatoes, the floods in the Midwest – if you buy local, you know where it came from and it didn't cost a lot of fossil fuel to get here."
Contact the reporter at ssollinger@timespapers.com
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