By Amy Fovargue and Carol Smathers
Regional Food Hubs and Farm to School
Regional food hubs are organizations that aggregate, distribute, and market food products from producers within that region. By combining products from farms of all sizes, food hubs help make it possible to meet the needs of wholesale, retail, and institutional buyers, including schools. Aggregating, distributing, and marketing foods on a regional level involves creatively solving the challenges of product pick-up and delivery, food safety procedures and related training, liability coverage, packaging and storage, and brand development. Some food hubs go even further to offer value-added product development and processing, local foods promotion campaigns, recipes and cooking demonstrations for using their products, and community employment opportunities.
When it comes to Farm to School, food hubs help address the challenges faced by school food service staff to find local producers with consistent and sizable amounts of produce, to cut and clean foods that come directly from farms, and to manage multiple deliveries and billings. Food hubs that successfully enable farm to school efforts range from businesses that focus solely on schools to organizations that serve diverse markets. A variety of food hubs operate throughout Ohio and help make it possible to bring locally grown and processed foods to schools.
Our Farm to School success story this month features the Hattie Larlham Food Hub. This food hub processes fresh produce from Northeast Ohio farmers, as well as sustainably-grown produce from its one-acre organic farm called “Hattie’s Gardens”, to sell to families and schools, while offering work training opportunities and career skills to individuals with developmental disabilities.
Providing Local Foods for Akron City Schools
Akron City Schools’s partnership with Hattie Larlham began after the district received a USDA Farm to School planning grant in 2015 for $44,999. The district wanted to establish a Farm to School program which would ultimately serve all 22,000 students. In recent years, the district has made efforts to provide healthier meal options for students. Their goal is to increase the amount of fresh local fruits and vegetables to help improve students’ health, quality of life and longevity. Curriculum will be developed to align with the concept of making healthy choices, the importance of eating locally grown foods, and the benefits that sustainable farming brings to people and the environment.
“The barrier for Farm to School for some of the new school facilities is that the kitchens are designed with only heating capacity and not preparation areas which local and fresh produce require,” said food hub manager Zac Rheinberger. Zac grew up in California and started to work in a restaurant at a young age. He has remained in the industry and has consulted for some restaurants in the Cleveland area. His goal in his role as food hub manager is to aggregate and distribute as much produce as possible to three Akron City schools. The food hub sells local foods to other schools, including Sharon Lynn, a school for girls, and Old Trail School.
Hattie Larlham’s new food hub
Hattie Larlham to Open New Food Hub Facility in 2016
Zac is eager for Hattie Larlham’s new food hub facility to open this spring. The facility will be located in a food desert in Akron with 600 square feet of retail area that will feature locally grown foods. Signage will educate consumers about the mileage of the produce and its transportation mode. According to Zac, the hub has operated out of the former BF Goodrich cafeteria in downtown Akron while the construction of a new facility was underway.
At the new facility canned tomato sauce and acidified foods will be produced, as well as baked goods. The facility will have a two stage blast chiller and cold storage so they can capture tomatoes and peppers at their peak then produce value added products for institutions. It will be certified to produce sauces, frozen goods, bakery goods. Organizers plan to make anything from pasta sauce to frozen peas, hot sauces, jellies and bottled juices. The hub will also have a dehydration room to make herb blends and soup stocks.
Partnership with OSU Extension
A 40-person education station in the new facility will host outreach activities provided by OSU Extension. Summit County Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator Jacqueline Kowalski said, “I am very excited about the work that Zac and Hattie Larlham Community Services are initiating within Summit County. They have engaged in a thoughtful and strategic process in order to bring the idea of a regional food hub to fruition.”
“This project will not only provide job opportunities to their clientele, but will also provide aggregation services to small and urban farms in the region which will continue to grow the local food economy and provide a market outlet that is not currently available to some farms,” Kowalski explained. “The location of the food hub will serve those that lack food access and provide a space for teaching and a community building.” According to Kowalski, OSU has served as the third party fiduciary for part of the grant funding utilized to build the hub and Hattie Larlham has graciously offered training space in order for OSU Extension to provide programming in the area of sustainable urban food production.
Focus on Food Safety
Zac said, “We will be creating a work force, so it is available when the need arises. I see a lot of local vegetable places coming on line in this area, but not a lot of meat, although there is local milk and cheese available that will be sold at our store. The criteria for the produce to be used in our kitchen will require that the food is GAP certified or working toward it. Organic is preferred, but we will also take produce that is from a sustainable farm.”
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are specific methods which, when applied to agriculture, create food for consumers or further processing that is safe and wholesome. While there are numerous competing definitions of what methods constitute good agricultural practice there are several broadly accepted schemes that producers can adhere to.
Future Opportunities and Challenges
Hattie Larlham is working on sustainability initiatives with the Akron Zoo, including an effort to take down blighted homes and develop urban gardens that Hattie Larlham will operate. Last year Hattie’s Gardens provided 3,000 fresh snacks of heirloom veggies from their gardens to a program called “Zoo Backpack Adventure” that provides underprivileged kids a trip to the zoo and a free backpack, plus school supplies at stations throughout the zoo, just before the start of the school year.
This summer Zac plans to provide a farmers market at the food hub featuring locally produced products. They will be sell local healthy popsicles, organic oats, Ohio grown fruit leathers and protein bars.
Some of the challenges Zac feels they might encounter at their new facility are space constraints and price points to make the food affordable. He said there are 45 local growers within a 100 mile radius, but only eight with hydroponic operations. Since offering vegetables year round is a challenge he wants to be able to preserve as much as they can.
For more information, contact Zac Rheinberger, Hattie Larlham Food Hub Manager, at zac.rheinberger@hattielarlham.org
