Rhode Island Feeds

At noon this past Tuesday, two dozen high schoolers and volunteers were hard at work at the front of New Battambang, a corner store on Elmwood Avenue in the southside of Providence. Junk food and candy were moved from the front of the store to lower shelves and the back, and replaced by bright colorful displays of fresh corn, cabbage, green beans, summer squash, peppers and tomatoes from Confreda Farms. While volunteers shuffled items around front of the store and labeled healthy items, students set up an art station outside and painted colorful signs featuring messages about healthy foods.

New Battambang’s Market Makeover is part of the Providence Healthy Corner Store Initiative (PHCSI), a new program that unites Rhode Island farmers, corner store owners, and community residents to increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and pastas, low-salt and low-sugar canned goods, and healthier snacks.

Even when stores stock fresh produce, customers’ purchasing habits are very much affected by the way produce is labeled, packaged and its quality, price and placement in the store. A little rearranging – a Market Makeover – goes a long way. The Market Makeovers make healthy food more visible and accessible in the store by physically rearranging products and displays to increase the visibility of healthier options. For example, junk food is removed from the front of the store and replaced with racks of fresh fruit. Healthy food items get branded with the Healthy Corner Store logo. All produce gets clear labels and price tags. In just four hours, students and volunteers had transformed the front of the store into a whole new experience that emphasizes healthy options over the usual! (NBC 10 was there. See the video! Also see Dave Ciplet’s photos, a piece in Providence en Español, in the Projo and the Serious Eats blog.)

The Initiative links in with Farm Fresh RI’s goal of increasing fresh food consumption in neighborhoods like Providence’s Southside disproportionately hit by childhood obesity and diabetes. (Farm Fresh also runs a farmers market on Broad Street.) Many residents here rely on corner stores rather than supermarkets for groceries. Farm Fresh RI provides logistical support for getting/promoting fresh food from farms to the city stores through our Market Mobile program, in collaboration with other PHCSI partners: the Environmental Justice League of RI, Kids First, RI Department of Health and Providence high school students.

This May, the PHCSI kicked off with a Iron Chef competition, in which three teams of high school students from Alvarez, the Met and Feinstein high schools competed to make the healthiest meal using ingredients purchased for just $10 at neighborhood corner stores. (The Met team won with a delicious veggie quesadilla that Sodexo, the food service provider for Providence Public Schools, then put on the lunch menu on June 16th at every school in the district.) Since then, PHCSI partners and volunteers have been hard at work identifying healthy items for stores to stock and preparing the marketing and outreach materials to let customers and community members know about healthy items in their stores. Going forward, the PHCSI will continue to provide outreach and technical support to increase the availability and sales of healthy food options in the stores. Farm Fresh plans to work with corner store owners to purchase fresh produce from local farms every week through Market Mobile.

The next Market Makeover will happen at Mi Quisqueya on Broad Street on Saturday, August 14th from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. Come by to help out or to shop!

12 talented chefs paired with 12 local farms. The tastiest event of the summer is only three weeks away. Join us for a ramble through the flavors of Rhode Island:

RI Local Food Fest
to benefit Farm Fresh Rhode Island
at Castle Hill Inn & Resort, Newport
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 from 5-8pm
Preview Hour at 4pm

Regular and Preview Hour tickets are now available. We encourage you to buy tickets now because they usually sell out before the event.

The annual Local Food Fest showcases the flavors of Rhode Island summer at its peak. RI chefs and farmers are joined by local vineyards, brewers, bakers and cheeseheads.

Our Farmers & Producers are the people who provide our daily bread (plus our tomatoes, basil and mozzarella).

· Aquidneck Farms · Aquidneck Honey · Allen Farms · Arcadian Fields · Bally Machree · Blackbird Farm · Barden Family Orchard · Blue Skys Flower Farm · Blue State Coffee · Bomster Scallops · Cupcakerie · Four Town Farm · Lydon Family Tomatoes · Matunuck Oyster Farm · Narragansett Creamery · New Harvest Coffee · Olga’s Cup and Saucer ·
· Rhody Fresh Milk · Red Planet Vegetables · Robin Hollow Farm · Schartner Farms · Simmons Farm · Sweet Berry Farm · Seven Stars Bakery · Wishing Stone Farm ·

Our Chefs support the mission of Farm Fresh RI at the Local Food Fest and every evening. They work with local farmers to excite, inspire and nourish us:

· Castle Hill · Newport Restaurant Group ·
· Blackstone Caterers · Chez Pascal ·
· Tallulah on Thames  · Sunnyside Daytime ·
· Little Farm Catering · Local 121 ·
· New Rivers · Nick’s on Broadway ·
· Persimmon · Vanderbilt Hall · La Laiterie

Wine & Beer Tastings from Rhode Island vineyards and breweries are included with full glasses also available for purchase.
· Greenvale Vineyards · Newport Vineyards · Sakonnet Vineyards · Narragansett Brewery · Newport Storm · Trinity Brewhouse · Langworthy Farm Winery

The Preview Hour is a unique experience with the chefs and farmers. Preview Hour guests are also treated to complimentary champagne, passed plates from Vanderbilt Hall, and a Matunuck Oyster raw bar.

The Silent Auction includes exclusive tours of farms, dinner and theatre packages, and cheesemaking classes, to name a few.

Live Music from Brown Bird, a wonderful (and local) bluesy-gypsy, folk rock treat.

Buy your tickets online today. Don’t miss your chance to enjoy the beautiful views from Castle Hill and the delicious flavors of Rhode Island at the Local Food Fest.
We hope you’ll come out, enjoy the fresh flavors and ocean air, and support the critical work of Farm Fresh.

Thank you to our generous supporters:

A new warehouse holds the key to linking farms with institutions responsible for feeding thousands of Rhode Islanders every day. We need your help to make it a reality.

Yes! I’d like to contribute now.

Only 1% of what we eat comes from RI farms.
The other 99%? We see it as a huge opportunity for strengthening our family farms and addressing community health issues like childhood obesity and diabetes.

We have the farms. We have the food. We have the trucks, drivers and delivery routes. We have the people on the inside at places like schools, hospitals, grocers and restaurants championing fresher, healthier food.

What are we waiting for? Farm Fresh RI needs an upgraded warehouse - the critical infrastructure - to handle the large quantities of produce needed by schools, hospitals and other big food buyers.

But with the unexpected loss of grant funding, we’re in a tough situation. There’s simply no way we can continue to meet the new demand from school and hospital customers without the right warehouse equipment.

We’re hoping to raise $10,000 from the community in the next 30 days as part of the necessary $75,000 investment we’re making this summer in our warehouse space in Pawtucket (by our Wintertime Market site). It will help us grow from last year’s $225,000 in local farm sales to a yearly $2.5 million in 2013. That’s a lot of local food, local jobs and a lot of healthy school lunches.

Please donate today. A contribution of any amount will help. We have some donors lined up, but that won’t yet cover it. A new walk-in cooler, freezer and cold packing room are simple, but they will yield an abundant harvest on dinner tables across Rhode Island for many years to come.

If you care about changing the way we eat… If you want a future where local farms, fresher flavors and healthier communities are the default, not just the 1%… Your donation can make it a reality!

Summer doesn’t officially start for another few days, but you wouldn’t know it based on the tables overflowing with peas and strawberries at farmers markets across Rhode Island. 31of the 45 markets are already open for the season, and what a harvest for early June! There hasn’t been any “downtime” between the winter and summer this year, with temps reaching 80 degrees in April. Though it’s left farmers without any chance of catching up on sleep, it’s a wonderful treat for everyone who eats.

Last week, we saw beets and asparagus at the Armory Market, broccoli and garlic scapes at the Downtown Providence Market, and cherries and basil at the Hope Street Market. We’ve even heard that the very first raspberries are already ready to harvest.

If you’re looking for an excuse to get out to a RI farm, now is the moment to do it. There’s nothing quite like a local strawberry, fresh from the fields. You can pick your own strawberries at a dozen nearby farms, and three farms let you pick sugar snap peas too.

Enjoy the sweet taste, and cheers to a local, delicious summer!

The Springtime Farmers Market in Pawtucket is lively with young greens, herbs, cheese, bread, eggs and meats. With only two weeks to go – Saturdays 11-2 through the end of May – naturally our thoughts are turning to summer.

On farms all around Rhode Island, farmers are busy laying the groundwork for a delicious summer. Asparagus is springing up and peas that were directly seeded in the ground are weaving along trellises. Kale and lettuce seedlings are making the journey from greenhouses to the field. Basil and tomato seedlings will wait inside for a bit longer. We’ve been extraordinarily lucky to escape frosts so far this May, but it’s still a little cool for their liking.

While farmers having been busy planting food, we’ve been busy planting EBT machines at more farmers market across RI. With more than 1 out of every 8 Americans relying on SNAP to feed their families in this tough economy, we’re thrilled that SNAP customers can now shop for fresh, healthy foods at 18 markets across the Ocean States. When SNAP dollars get spent at local farmers markets, it’s a big win for both farmers and eaters.

Thanks to our partnership with Wholesome Wave and your generous donations, Farm Fresh RI will continue doubling SNAP up to $5 Bonus Bucks per day at our markets in Providence, Pawtucket and Woonsocket this summer.

Some RI summer markets open in May, but we wait for the weather and harvest to ripen a bit more. Here are the Farm Fresh RI markets that will be popping up in Providence in June and beyond:

• Armory – Thursday 6/3
  welcome to new vendors: Farmacy Herbs, Mixed Grille Catering, Nonquit Salad Farm
• Downtown – Friday 6/4
  welcome to new vendors: Absalona Greenhouse, Blue State Coffee, Stirring Spoon, Virginia & Spanish Peanut Co.
• Hope St. / Lippitt Park – Saturday 6/5
  welcome to new vendors: Aquidneck Farms, Cupcakerie, Harmony Hill Farm, Olga’s Cup & Saucer, Purple Pear, Xiong Farm
• Coming in July: Broad St., Pawtucket / Slater Mill, Woonsocket
• Coming in September: Brown

Our 2010 RI Farmers Market bookmarks are arriving from the printer this week. Pictured above, we have 4 editions this year: Northern RI; West Bay + South County; East Bay + Aquidneck + Sakonnet; and the Providence area (English and Spanish). They’re good for your wallet or the fridge and are an easy way to keep track of farmers markets in your area throughout the summer. Find the bookmarks at farmers markets, restaurants that buy local, visitor centers and other community spots.

There’s also still time to sign up for a CSA, a weekly subscription to a farm’s veggies. Try it out!

Help us get an Incubator Kitchen off the Ground in RI!
Go back a few decades and RI had many certified food processing sites for food harvested from RI farms and waters. There were places for, well, you name it: canning tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, preserving fruits, making cheese and yogurt, baking and roasting, butchering meat, shucking oysters, and filleting fish. But today’s reality is much spottier. As bigger-is-better policies pushed the national and global consolidation of our food supply, there was reduced support for local farms and food processing sites and many closed.

With a reawakening today to the economic, environmental and basic social value of local food production, RI entrepreneurs are rising to the opportunity. Farm Fresh routinely offers guidance and support to folks interested in creating or building upon their food business. Through our Open Kitchen initiative we aim to expand the diversity of foods produced in RI using ingredients grown in RI, thereby providing a livelihood for more Rhode Islanders. But the obstacles associated with starting a food business are staggering. There are start-up costs for ingredients, equipment, and licensing, plus the trouble of finding a certified kitchen and a consistent customer base. Because there are so many obstacles, there are also few success-story mentors who can help.

Enter Hope & Main
In order to build a robust local food system we need more infrastructure, like dedicated kitchens for processing local foods. We are thrilled that RI’s first fully dedicated incubator kitchen, Hope & Main, is now being planned for the former Main Street School site in Warren, RI. Based on incubator models across the nation, this shared-use facility will be rented out by the hour or month to provide kitchen equipment and storage, along with professional services, mentoring and education to ensure that local businesses mature and are eventually prepared to stand alone.

Lisa Raiola, Executive Director of the new not-for-profit organization that hopes to create the kitchen, tells Farm Fresh, “Hope & Main is intent to build upon the Farm Fresh mission through a series of cooperative partnerships. We aim to work with Farm Fresh to supply the members of our kitchen incubator with fresh local ingredients and to expand the reach of Farm Fresh’s educational and nutrition programs to more Rhode Islanders.”

If you might be interested in sharing a kitchen or know someone else who would, then please fill out the Hope & Main Needs Assessment Survey. Help this proposed incubator kitchen get off the ground!

Farm Fresh knows there is a serious need for a dedicated incubator kitchen space in the state. Please pass this information to others who may be interested in the kitchen, your feedback is valuable in planning for this venture! Email Christie with questions.