The owner of the local cafe posted a sign much like this one a few weeks ago. This photo is for the second meeting, happening Tuesday evening. She’s started a new business across the street from the cafe, a commercial kitchen with all the accoutrements. Her idea, which was discussed with high enthusiasm by 15-20 people at the first meeting, is to create a local food “brand”, by combining local growers with local “processors”, the latter being people with recipes and products they are interested in producing commercially. In other words, if someone wants to produce, say, apple butter, or jarred pasta sauce, they coordinate with the local growers to get the right variety of tomatoes, apples, etc. After buying their ingredients (mostly local as possible), they make their product in her commercial kitchen, which has all the certifications and equipment needed to be legal. UC Davis will provide us nutritional analyses of recipes submitted. Items produced in this way will be eligible for the local brand label, and hopefully the local markets will be interested in carrying these products. Of course they could also be sold at the Farmer’s Market (for which, in a parallel project also coming out of the cafe, there are plans to hold a second Farmer’s Market each week, the new one being in the middle of town and held on Saturday mornings, so that tourists and 40-hour-a-week-ers will be able to attend — the current Farmer’s Market, which will also continue, is held on the hospital lawn, which is *not* in the middle of town — even if it’s only a quarter-mile away — and it’s held at 3:00 on Friday afternoons, and is usually done by 3:30. Not too convenient unless you happen to be right there).
I was wary that the first meeting, which was attended by much of the gardening crowd, would produce lots of growers but no processors. However, when asked to show hands, there were a good 8-10 people expressing interest in producing a product. Many were also growers.
My role in this project is likely to be grower only, unless I discover something I really want to make as a finished item. And, since I’m in a new place and don’t know the details of how the garden will do this first year, I’m pretty tentative in what I can offer anyway. I’m more likely to bring whatever does well in my garden to the farmer’s market. Committing to provide X pounds of tomatoes or potatoes or whatever, will have to wait at least one growing season, as I learn what grows well in my location/soil/water. On the other hand, there are a dozen mature fruit trees in my yard, starting to bud out as I type. I know most are apple, I know there’s at least one apricot, and I suspect at least one peach and one pear. Soon as I can figure out what varieties they are, I can make at least a tentative offer to provide some of the harvest for any processor who needs those ingredients.
My other role in this project is that the lower fields at my house will be used by my friend KH, who plans for large garden beds. Her aim is to provide produce for the cafe directly, plus for the farmer’s market, but it certainly includes providing ingredients for the processors.
There are so many things that might possibly go wrong, both in my yard and with this project in general, but I am so excited to see it being discussed and tried! I think this is just the kind of conversation we need to be having now, so that when/if a time comes, next year or in several years, when this valley returns to being dependent on its local growers for most of its food, we’ll not be starting from zero coordination at that time.
Also, Growing Challenge update: I started a few seeds from each of my items yesterday. They’re on the kitchen windowsill, in the plastic tubs that I buy organic salad greens in from the market. (Of course, once I’m growing my own salad greens, I’ll have to get my indoor starter containers elsewhere :) There are lots of other garden items I want to try starting from seed too, but other than some catnip, I haven’t planted those seeds yet.
