Interview with Shon Rainford, Senior Project Manager & Susannah Hinman, Sales Manager. Interview conducted by Dena Stearns, MFTS Communications Director & Shannon Mulkern, MFTS Intern.
The Worcester Regional Food Hub was created out of a desire to establish a simplified path to purchasing local food for institutional buyers and to assist farmers in distributing their products to larger scale purchasers. The Food Hub is made up of two distinct parts: distribution of local food & an incubator kitchen. For the purposes of our Farm to School audience this profile will focus on the local food aspect of the Food Hub.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed.
Who can purchase from the Worcester Regional Food Hub?
Shon Rainford (SR): We will sell to all interested parties. But our target markets are currently institutional buyers. Those include schools, colleges, universities, health care facilities. We have a catering company that works at a public site, and Tower Hill, a botanical garden in the area. We do have the REC mobile markets. And we have a few other farmer’s markets that we’re going to be working with.
Tell us about your work with public schools in Central Massachusetts.
SR: We are currently working with 9 different school districts. We are rapidly increasing our network of public schools as there is a lot of interest in local food purchasing. It continues to impress me that food service directors are willing to put the effort into sourcing local food. And it makes a difference because the kids definitely notice. Worcester Public Schools was our first school buyer. We supply them with apples, and it’s great because it’s helped us foster some close working relationships with apple orchards in central Mass. And the orchards appreciate the business because it has created a market for smaller apples that aren’t really marketable in any other setting. A supermarket isn’t going to want a small apple, but it’s perfect for kids.
Susannah Hinman (SH): I did some analysis on our school sales in advance of this interview. 90% of what we deliver to schools is apples. And when we bring on new schools, that’s the first place I suggest they start because it’s an easy swap in central Massachusetts and we’re able to be competitive with regular distributors as far as pricing goes. So that’s a no-brainer. Potatoes is another popular crop, but it depends on the school.
We have a few growers who do peeled and diced butternut squash, and another farm that produces a few varieties of spring mix and baby lettuces year-round that some schools are switching over to. We focus on building out our programs with schools on an individualized basis, essentially using their feedback to dictate a lot of our future purchasing decisions. If an item, like the butternut squash for example, proves to do well then we will then work with more of our farmers to scale up the production so we can supply more volume. We also make every effort to understand school food regulations and the obstacles school foodservice directors have in purchasing local food. And working with organizations like yours helps us get a bigger picture idea of what is succeeding and what we can do to make local food purchasing more accessible from our end.
One of the partnerships that is interesting is our work with Auburn Public Schools. In 2017 Mass Ag in the Classroom was awarded a Specialty Crop Block Grant in conjunction with Auburn Public Schools to expand access to and consumption of specialty crops required in the National School Lunch Program. They asked us to participate with them at first because of our local food distribution capacity but we are also working to implement allied programs that can easily be replicated across other school districts. For example, last spring our chef and kitchen manager at the time ran a hand-on training workshop with the staff at Auburn to refresh their skills on, for example, the most efficient ways to process whole produce in anticipation of our providing more of this kind of food versus the processed and pre-prepared food they are used to. The staff had a blast and it was fun to be able to get to see not only the kids excited about local produce, but the folks who have to prepare it getting excited too. And we were able to tie our kitchen food development wing into our institutional wing, which is something we are always looking to do more of.
And how does the pickup/delivery process work for schools & farmers?
SR: The biggest problem that we’re solving for schools is the logistics piece. We have access to the Worcester Food Bank’s fleet of trucks. We also make farm pick-ups. Typically we’ll bring the produce here, store it for a day or two, and then deliver to the respective customers. Farms can deliver here, that’s always encouraged. But in the interest of being able to help farms get access to markets, we’ll certainly do pick-ups too. We have a delivery minimum, but we can deliver to as many schools as the district needs or wants.
Is it possible to let schools know exactly which orchard (or farm) their produce is coming from?
SR: We work with several different orchards, and a customer can actually select which orchard’s apples they’re buying from. There may be a rare case where we may say we have various apples. But 99% of the time, they are saying, “I want a 198-count apple from Carlson Orchards that’s in Harvard, Massachusetts”.
SH: The farm identification is important to us. We want our customers to know where they are getting their products. As far as supply meeting demand – we’re on track to triple our volume this season over last year. It’s individualized with regard to how we work with the farms. And because we’re only in our second year, there’s not a lot of history. At some point, we’d like to put crop planning into practice.
How have you built the relationships with the farmers who you are working with?
SR: We do a fair amount of outreach whether that’s in farmers’ markets, social media, making personal connections, or through Central Mass Grown, the state organization for Central Massachusetts’ farmer promotion. They’re a great resource for us. We presented at their annual meeting last month to try and get the word out about what we do.
Do the farmers contact you weekly with what’s available?
SR: Yes, Susannah reaches out weekly to our network of farmers to see what’s available. And then she’ll compile that information into our database. This way, the customers can see what’s available this week and make their decisions. For a lot of things, there’s multiple sources. Apples from a couple different orchards, cheeses from a couple different places. We have microgreens now from a couple different places. And we have a whole host of farms that are doing the wide-scale produce. We work with only one farm currently that does meat. But they have a wide variety of beef, pork, chicken, eggs. We can either get it fresh or frozen weekly.
SR: One of our biggest challenges as we continue to get a more diverse array of buyers on a larger scale is that we’re going to need more and more product. Ideally that product is coming from central Massachusetts. We want to encourage farmers to come on board with us because it’s a great opportunity. One of the real benefits of a farmer working with us is the amount of the food dollar that they are keeping is tremendous when compared to working with the typical distributor. We’re not dictating prices to our farmers. We’re doing all the sales, and we can pick up from the farm. So between transportation and marketing, we’re saving the farmers a great deal so they can focus on growing.
Do farmers have the ability to set their prices or does the Food Hub set the price?
SH: It’s both. Whenever I’m working with a farm, I like to ask what they want for this item. Nine times out of ten, we’re able to sell it at that price. But if we do need to negotiate, then we try to do it as respectfully as possible. We’re not in business without our farms in business, so we certainly prioritize trying to hit that number.
What are your goals for the future of the Worcester Regional Food Hub?
SR: We want to be a sustainable business. We operate within a nonprofit, and we may become our own nonprofit down the road. We’re part of the food bank currently, but that grant funding won’t last forever. We need to operate as a business, so we – there’s 35 public school districts in Worcester county, plus there’s a handful of vocational schools. I would love to be in every public school district in Worcester county. There’s other school districts that aren’t that far away either that are outside Worcester county, but that’s a goal. We just picked up a potentially very large institutional buyer today that we’re very excited about and other people will probably be very excited about. There are many colleges and universities in this area. We’re working with Holy Cross and Clark University currently. There’s opportunity for growth there. And the numerous healthcare facilities in the area. So as far as the institutional buyers, I feel like we’ve just cracked the surface. Some of it is about building awareness. People don’t necessarily know that we exist, and we need to get out there and let people know we’re here and the great, local food that they can get, which helps their customers and the local economy.
SH: Like Shon said, our target audience has been underserved communities and places like public schools. In order to become sustainable, I think we are looking to diversify. So that can include restaurants, some retail locations. It would allow us to sell more local food. That’s the goal.
Final thoughts from Shon & Susannah on working at the Worcester Regional Food Hub
SR: I love this job. What we do here, working with people in the kitchen and with the farmers and our customers – everything about it is just crazy exciting. We’re having fun. Everything about it – we work with local farmers, we’re helping to start small food businesses, we’re getting healthy food to kids. I have school age kids, and we’ve signed up the school district that my kids go to. That makes me very excited. We’re helping food service professionals become better at their jobs. Everything about it is fun and exciting and really rewarding.
SH: It is really exciting. Because we’re new, we can decide what direction we want to go in. We’re trying to make change in a lasting way. I really appreciate the relationships we have with our customers. Webster Public Schools is a good example. Ellen Nylen, Food Service Director at Webster Public Schools, invited me to be a part of the Mass. Farm to School Institute last year. It was great not only for them, but for me to see the hard work that all of these schools put into their job.
Phone: (413) 253-3844
Email: info@massfarmtoschool.org
