The project’s creators explain:

What can a well-meaning school do to help their students eat healthier? One way might be to raise the prices on the less healthy foods. Another way might be to eliminate unhealthy choices from the food service menu.

Another set of solutions has been largely overlooked. These are the lunchroom changes – the environmental changes – that can lead a student to unknowingly make healthier lunch choices without knowing they were “nudged” in that direction by the way the lunchroom was designed.

The Smarter Lunchrooms site provides robust research, real-life case studies and plenty of tips for how to change the lunchroom to “nudge” kids toward healthier choices, such as re-naming menu items to sound more appetizing, making vegetables and fruit the “default” sides to a main dish, and displaying healthy foods in appealing, well-lit ways.

Is your district employing any of these tactics? If so, we’d love to hear about it!

WSDA Farm-to-School Program will provide support to match up farms and schools and facilitate the purchasing process. Many school nutrition directors are off for part of the summer, so we’d like to start the process as soon as possible.

We will also help schools add educational activities to the day, whether that’s posters in the cafeteria, inviting a farmer to lunch, or visiting or lunching in a school garden.  We want Washington’s kids to spend that day considering the farmers who grow their food, and we want Washington farmers to help us bring that to life!

For more information, to be listed as a participating farm, or to get help linking to your local school districts, please contact Tricia Kovacs, WSDA Farm-to-School Program Manager, at tkovacs@agr.wa.gov or 206-256-6150.

Bob Neroni and Lenore Emery fell in love with Cannon Beach twenty years ago. In 2004, they left behind corporate careers in the food industry in Seattle, moved to Cannon Beach and opened EVOO (named for their favorite staple, Extra Virgin Olive Oil), where they have since taught hundreds of classes together on everything from handmade pasta to knife skills to Seafood 101.

Guests of EVOO are treated to fun, informal classes featuring fresh seasonal ingredients—right now, that means fiddlehead ferns, asparagus, morels, scallops and pea vines. Believers in the Slow Food movement, Neroni and Emery offer classes that focus not just on food, but also on the experience of preparing meals together. And thanks to FoodHub, Neroni and Emery can more easily fill their guests’ plates with Oregon’s finest ingredients, helping EVOO dish out fabulous meals on the Oregon Coast for many years to come.

Photo by Carole Topalian

One person to ask is Margot Wilcoxon, chef of Salvador Molly’s, who posted a request in the FoodHub marketplace for a local farm to grow 80+ bushels of habañero peppers. Salvador Molly’s has been serving up flavor-packed food for fourteen years on SW Sunset Boulevard. The restaurant also runs booths at three area farmers markets, selling handmade tamales.

How large then is a bushel of peppers? Others to ask include Anne and Rene Berblinger of Gales Meadow Farm, who were among the ten respondents to Wilcoxon’s post. Gales Meadow Farm sits in Washington County in the Gale Creek Valley. With over 250 varieties of vegetables and herbs—among them ancho, cayenne and jalapeño peppers—the farm had what Salvador Molly’s sought in terms of “variety, quantity and price,” Wilcoxon says. “They were personable and knowledgeable about their product and their growing capacity”

Wilcoxon made verbal contracts with Gales Meadow—which will grow jalapeños, tomatoes and cilantro—and two other local farms to provide her with not only peppers, but also other ingredients for salsas and tamale fillings.

“Hopefully we will enter into partnerships where we can let the grower know what we will buy next season, allowing them to plan, grow and get some stability in their business,” Wilcoxon continues.

A bushel is approximately 30 pounds. This year, with 80 bushels of hot peppers grown only one county away, Salvador Molly’s will receive some 2,400 pounds of local heat. Spicy!

Photo by Carole Topalian

Photo by Scott Trimble

Kris posted a request to the Marketplace. She notes that her experience in the past trying to find local farmers who would grow directly for LP&P was time-consuming and not always fruitful. “Unless you’ve made previous contact with farmers… it’s tough to gauge if they’re interested in wholesaling their produce and/or could handle the volume you’re looking for,” she says.

Shortly after placing her Marketplace post, Kris heard from about one dozen interested farmers. She is now working out the details with several local farms and looks forward to harvest time, when she will begin “processing, storing and using all the great produce, creating even more phenomenal fillings for LP&P tarts.”

As a buyer, she notes, she hasn’t often thought about when farmers plant their crops. The opportunity to make forward contracts brought that consideration into the fore of her mind.

“My goal is to create on-going connections in order to have a network of suppliers as we (and they) grow,” she continues. “I’m running around telling everyone how excited I am to have local farms grow for us.”

Small farm operators and interested parties in Oregon and Washington are invited to comment on fresh produce food safety standards being developed by the US Food and Drug Administration. A listening session co-hosted by the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) is scheduled for May 5, 2010 in Portland with officials from FDA, the US Department of Agriculture, and the two hosting state departments of agriculture on hand to take input.

FDA is currently developing fresh produce safety standards for farms and packing houses along with strategies and cooperative efforts to ensure compliance. Officials are interested in hearing concerns and experiences with implementing food safety requirements in farming and packing operations. The input will help guide efforts to enact food safety regulations for the produce industry over the next few years.

ODA Director Katy Coba and WSDA Director Dan Newhouse will provide opening remarks at the listening session.

The Pacific Northwest Small Farms Listening Session will be held Wednesday, May 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 Noon at the Sheraton Inn Portland Airport, 8235 NE Airport Way. Registration is not necessary. For more information, contact Sherry Kudna, ODA, at (503) 986-4619 or by e-mail at skudna@oda.state.or.us

Listening session agenda here.

Federal docket providing background information on FDA procedure here.

Gitta Grether-Sweeney, the assistant director for the district, posted a request on FoodHub’s Marketplace section for 200 pounds of radishes. Trif was one of three respondents. Connection made!

Gitta has another post in the Marketplace section right now for mixed greens for the salad bar. FoodHub farmers, be sure to login regularly to check Marketplace posts!

The opportunity to connect with school districts and get regionally produced foods into the school cafeteria has never been greater. FoodHub is here to help jump start the connections. There are a number of new school districts in FoodHub—see the list below. Do you produce food in or near these communities? If so, be sure to connect!

David Douglas School District
Hillsboro School District
Kings Valley Charter School
McMinnville School District
North Marion School District
Sheridan School District
Willamina School District

Photo by Carole Topalian

Consider this post from Grand Central Bakery: “We are in search of local rhubarb for pie season. We prefer once a week deliveries to our North Portland Bakery. We need 250-350 pounds per week while in season (April – July).”

FoodHub member Big B Farms responded to the post, struck a deal, and is now set to deliver rhubarb. “It was like magic,” said Grand Central Bakery’s Laura Ohm.

Help us keep making magic.

Not a FoodHub member? Join today.

Already a member? Be sure to read through and respond to those Marketplace Posts! It’s March Madness for sure.