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Two local food projects have made a difference in their communities.
Competitive grants from the Leopold Center have jump-started local food projects in Black Hawk and Johnson counties. The result has been more interest in “buying local” and additional opportunities for area business owners as well as farmers.
For the Local Food Project at the University of Northern Iowa, the opportunity has added up to money that has stayed in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area.
Growing more than food
During the past five years, eight institutions participating in the UNI project (including nursing homes, hospitals, schools and two restaurants) have purchased a reported $783,000 of meat, fruits and vegetables from farmers in Black Hawk and neighboring counties. Some growers estimate that institutional sales represent 15 percent of their total sales. Two businesses now buy all of their beef and pork from local locker plants.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg for the potential of capturing food dollars locally,” said Kamyar Enshayan, who heads the Local Food Project operated at UNI’s Center for Energy and Environmental Education.
He estimates the 49,900 Black Hawk County households spend about $300 million each year on groceries and eating out. “Retaining as much of the food dollars locally as possible is good community economic development,” he said. “It builds on our most precious assets: our people and our land.”
Enshayan has found that every dollar invested in the UNI Local Food Project funneled $6.50 into the regional economy
In 1998, Enshayan received a $17,000 annual grant for three years to set up the Local Food Project, which has since been renewed for an additional three years. Funds support educational activities as well as salaries for summer student interns. They make weekly calls to 10 to 15 farmers who are part of the growers network to determine the type and quantities of produce available. The information is faxed to 10 food buyers, who work directly with farmers for delivery. At the peak of the growing season, the weekly selections may include 40 to 50 fruits and vegetables.
Growing restaurant support
Barry Eastman, who owns and operates Rudy’s Tacos, said the UNI project helped link him with 10 or 12 farmers and a local locker plant that supply 100 percent of the beef, pork, chicken, cheese, tomatoes and black beans served in his Waterloo restaurant. Locally raised meat and produce make up 65 percent of his annual food purchases, or about $120,500. He features the farmers on table tents in the restaurant.
Six years ago, Eastman said the UNI project helped him find a local source for free-range chickens, which he had read about in trade publications.
“I’m always looking for better ingredients – that’s part of my job,” he said. “But when I cooked this chicken, the difference in taste just blew me away. From then on I have tried to get everything locally that I could. I also want to support our local family farms.”
“The response from my customers has been great,” he added. “Almost on a daily basis I hear from people who really like the local foods.”
Robin Gaines, director of nutrition services at Bartels Lutheran Retirement Community in Waverly, has seen similar enthusiasm from many of the 200 residents. In 2002, the dining service purchased all of its beef and pork, about $40,000, from a local locker plant. The dining services also uses as much seasonal produce as possible from local farmers.
“Our residents wanted fresh tomatoes and we had trouble finding enough at the farmers market,” Gaines said. “A local hospital put us in touch with the UNI project and we’ve been buying locally since.” Residents also enjoy helping the dining staff husk sweet corn delivered fresh from the field.
“We are in a farming community,” she added, “and many of our residents were farmers or have some connection with farming. This is our way of giving something back to the community.”
Growing community interest
In the Iowa City-Coralville area, the Johnson County Soil and Water Conservation District’s local food project grew so quickly that total sales could not be tracked for the entire three-year grant. The commerce that was tracked, however, nearly tripled, with most white-tablecloth restaurants now offering some kind of locally grown food on the menu.
Carol Hunt, who manages the Johnson County local food project, also has seen tremendous support for local foods. As part of the Leopold Center grant that ended June 2002, Hunt compiled a directory of producers in a nine-county area. The directory lists 125 farmers, and the list has nearly doubled in three years. Many of those producers support five area farmers markets, including one new venue.
Hunt also helped develop initial relationships between farmers, chefs and area food service personnel. She worked with community groups to explain the benefits of buying locally grown products. More than 20 all-Iowa banquets for 1,500 people resulted in at least $10,000 in additional sales for local farmers.
Hunt estimates that if each of the 44,000 households in Johnson County spent just $10 a week on local foods, an estimated $23 million would stay in the local economy
Iowa City chef Kurt Friese relies on 20 to 30 sources for locally grown products to supply his two Iowa City restaurants. Although buying local is a simple concept, he said that someone needed to do the preliminary work.
“When I came to Iowa City 11 years ago, I was almost the only person interested in buying local,” he said. “Interest has grown by leaps and bounds but this doesn’t happen by itself because it’s too easy to buy frozen French fries off the back of a truck. There is a local food system here because of Carol and the Leopold Center project.”
Enshayan said that neither producers nor food buyers have the time to develop the network needed to make a local food system work. And he said the process does not happen overnight.
“The real work of the Leopold Center is not just as a source of grants, but in bringing people together,” he said. “That’s where new ideas are discussed and projects are built.”
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