Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Middlemen for Organic Foods are Missing!

The Dearth of Organic Food Middlemen

 as Shown in San Diego County

 
 
Few people, even residents, realize that San Diego County, in the U.S.A., has over 6,000 small farms!  A recent story (May 4, 2013) in San Diego's daily, U-T San Diego, describes the huge gap between these farmers and institutional would-be purchasers of produce, whether "natural" or organic.
 
U-T San Diego reports, "Small farmers in Southern California are finding new customers through a San Diego initiative to create healthier diets in schools.  The effort is part of a larger movement by the National Farm to School Network (www.farmtoschool.org), founded in 2007 by more than 30 organizations to connect growers in their areas."
 
Julia Anne Arnett, senior manager of operations and food systems for the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative said, " You'd think it would be easy to find the small produce growers, but it hasn't been easy."
 
The newspaper report goes on to say, ". . . with no single broker between growers and schools, the first step can be a logistical maze for districts."
 

Never Mind Organic--Just Find Middlemen!

 
 
How can organic food be fostered for school kitchens, or restaurants, when middlemen linking local growers and would-be buyers in bulk are scarce or don't even exist?
 
One small middleman, Al Vandendriesse of American Produce Distributors in Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego, says school districts will pay more for organically grown produce but it costs about the same to buy locally versus from large, out-of-state farms.  It may be even less expensive because of the savings in transporting the produce.
 

Getting Paid Can be the Issue!

 
 
Although growers make less, he says, by selling to school districts than to produce markets and restaurants, "The advantage to distributing to school districts is that we get paid.  That might sound simple, but there's a number who don't get paid because restaurants tend to grow broke a lot."

 

In other words, getting fresh organic food into school cafeterias and restaurants

 is no simple matter

--even if farmers grow plenty!



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